Business North Carolina July 2021

STATE’S TOP JOB-CREATING PROJECTS DRUG DISTRIBUTORS PAY UP • RACING LEGEND RICHARD CHILDRESS • URSULA CARMONA CRAFTS

Upstart miner Piedmont Lithium sees North Carolina as a linchpin in the auto industry revolution.

JULY 2021 Price: $3.95 businessnc.com

Cover_and_inside_cover_July 2021.indd 1

6/18/21 12:58 PM

Cover_and_inside_cover_July 2021.indd 2

6/18/21 12:58 PM

Contents_July 2021.indd 1

6/18/21 1:02 PM

Contents_July 2021.indd 2

6/18/21 1:02 PM

+ DEPARTMENTS 4 UP FRONT 8 PILLARS

Racing legend Richard Childress’ career includes pit stops in entrepreneurship, wildlife conservation, guns and winemaking.

JULY 2021 COVER STORY

14 NC TREND

State mulls opioid settlement; new boat building programs set sail; child care rebounds from pandemic; Oransi clears the air; Wilmington’s Zimmers eye Raleigh.

82 TOWN SQUARE

A picturesque Triad suburb, Summerfield eyes development to attract newcomers while maintaining its wide-open spaces.

ELECTRIFYING POTENTIAL

56

+ SPONSORED SECTIONS

BY EDWARD MARTIN

TOP JOB-CREATING PROJECTS

34 ROUND TABLE

Western North Carolina officials discuss challenges faced during the pandemic and solutions that can be used to build a stronger future.

Tesla-powered miner Piedmont Lithium wants to make Gaston County a rock-solid link in the auto-supply chain.

48

A ranking of North Carolina’s key economic development expansions over the past year.

BY LAWRENCE BIVINS

42 EMPOWERING LIVES

Businesswomen from across the state are having a major impact on their communities.

CHIC ON THE CHEAP

CO V E R I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R A L P H V O L T Z

66 RESEARCH N.C.

Research-based innovation is critical to the state’s economic strategy.

July 2021, Vol. 41, No. 7 (ISSN 0279-4276). Business North Carolina is published monthly by Business North Carolina at 1230 West Morehead Street, Suite 308 Charlotte, NC 28208. Telephone: 704-523-6987. Fax: 704-523-4211. All contents copyright ©

by Old North State Magazines LLC. Subscription rate: 1 year, $30. For change of address, send mailing label and allow six to eight weeks. Periodicals postage paid at Charlotte, NC, and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Business North Carolina, 1230 West Morehead Street, Suite 308 Charlotte, NC 28208 or email circulation@businessnc.com.

62

Self-taught Triad DIYer Ursula Carmona turns a home-renovation hobby into media acclaim.

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS

Start your day with business news from across the state, direct to your inbox.

SIGN UP AT BUSINESSNC.COM/DAILY-DIGEST. J U L Y

Contents_July 2021.indd 3

2 0 2 1

3

6/18/21 1:06 PM

UPFRONT

I

► David Mildenberg

BRAGGING RIGHTS

s this a great state or what?

That’s the impression I get every month as we hit the button sending this magazine to the printer.

For some, that sounds like an overly optimistic promoter who is missing many intractable problems. There is a long list of challenges that Business North Carolina readers are well acquainted with. We're our own toughest critics, often missing personal goals for a variety of insightful, impactful, hard-hitting stories.

Still, the mix of people and businesses that show up each month in this publication lifts my spirits. They reflect a state that, despite blemishes, has awesome potential.

Consider this month’s edition: ■ We rank 26 companies that pledge the most new jobs in the state in coming years.

They include some of the world’s richest, most prominent businesses. They could go anywhere but picked North Carolina.

Yes, incentives helped make the decision in many cases. Fortunately, they don’t get the cash until they’ve built something and hired somebody. Creating jobs strikes me as the highest calling for leaders and businesses because most societal problems can be mitigated or solved when people are employed and lead productive lives.

■ We publicize innovators such as doit-yourself home-improvement influencer Ursula Carmona of Ruffin and air-purifier manufacturer Peter Mann of Raleigh. Both found North Carolina to be a great place to build unusual businesses after spending most of their lives elsewhere.

■ We spotlight long-term success stories. It’s hard to get more homegrown than Richard Childress, the NASCAR team owner whose second act involves a substantial wine business in Davidson County. The Zimmer family of Wilmington, featured on Page 24, has excelled in real estate and retailing for decades.

4

B U S I N E S S

Masthead_Up Front_July 2021.indd 4

N O R T H

V O L U M E 4 1 , N O. 7 PUBLISHER

Ben Kinney

bkinney@businessnc.com EDITOR

David Mildenberg

dmildenberg@businessnc.com MANAGING EDITOR

Taylor Wanbaugh

twanbaugh@businessnc.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR

■ We host monthly round tables providing unfiltered comments from key leaders.

This edition includes executives from western North Carolina, one of the hottest relocation regions in the U.S. ■ We rely on Senior Contributing Editor Ed Martin to make sense of a complex story, as we have for many years. This month, he explains why startup Piedmont Lithium may join the ranks of the state’s influential companies in a couple of years.

You get my drift. There is unlimited opportunity here.

Among the most contentious news stories in North Carolina in the past month is that of an acclaimed New Yorker who wants a professor's job here — provided she gets lifetime tenure at her alma mater.

A five-year contract offer does not cut it.

The issue wasn’t resolved at our press time. It’s complicated and full of racial and gender tension, like many things in 2021. She’s an advocate pressing for change, which inevitably makes comfortable folks feel uneasy. Change agents are essential for progress.

Still, if she asked for my opinion, I’d urge her to take the five-year deal, help turn her students into stars and bet that good things will happen.

After all, is this a great state or what?

Contact David Mildenberg at dmildenberg@businessnc.com.

Cathy Martin

cmartin@businessnc.com SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Edward Martin

emartin@businessnc.com SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR

Pete Anderson

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Dan Barkin, Vanessa Infanzon, Lawrence Bivins, Bryan Mims, Connie Gentry, Cynthia Adams, Laura Brummett CREATIVE MANAGER

Peggy Knaack

pknaack@businessnc.com ART DIRECTOR

Ralph Voltz

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Amy Freeman, Justin Driscoll, Mark Wagoner MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jennifer Ware

jware@businessnc.com AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST

Scott Leonard

sleonard@businessnc.com

ADVERTISING SALES ACCOUNT MANAGERS

Sue Graf, western N.C. 704-523-4350 sgraf@businessnc.com

Melanie Weaver Lynch, eastern N.C. 919-855-9380 mweaver@businessnc.com CIRCULATION: 818-286-3106 EDITORIAL: 704-523-6987 REPRINTS: circulation@businessnc.com

BUSINESSNC.COM OWNERS

Correction: The June issue used an outdated logo for Greater Winston-Salem Inc., which launched in 2020 upon the combination of the WinstonSalem Chamber and Winston-Salem Business Inc. We apologize for the error.

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff PUBLISHED BY

Old North State Magazines LLC PRESIDENT

David Woronoff

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 11:12 AM

Masthead_Up Front_July 2021.indd 5

6/18/21 1:12 PM

BNC ONLINE Michael Morris We love getting feedback from our readers.

Here’s a sampling of what you had to say about Business North Carolina on social media last month.

I have read this publication for years! Great print media on N.C. BIZ!

Love seeing so many great @greensborocity based companies like @TheBrooksGroup and @sametcorp in this list!

Best Employers

Hey, we know that guy!

I'm late on sharing this because it feels weird to share it. But I decided to share that I was included in Business North Carolina's 2021 Power List anyway for two reasons.

1. We all know that no one person is responsible for a business being successful enough to place one of its leaders on a list like this. Our success at The Variable isn't because of me. It's because of the most talented and hard-working team I've ever had the privilege to be on. So it's really a team award. And while it feels weird to brag on myself, I'd brag on this team any day.

Chris Wilson @ChrisWilsonGSO

Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area CVB @homeofusagolf

David Mullen

June issue, Metcon CEO Aaron Thomas

Alan Thompson Great family and business!

2. Michael Jordan is on this list. Yes, THAT Michael Jordan. So, that's pretty cool.

Congrats to everyone else featured. I'm humbled for our team and work to be in the company of so many great teams here in N.C. There are great things happening over here.

2021 Power List

storms4wfu Such a special family and store!! Congrats!!

Podcast: Phil Werz

Small-town department store Leinwand's hangs tough

Small-town department store Leinwand's hangs tough

Read these stories and more at

businessnc.com.

Sign up to receive our free Daily Digest newsletter at businessnc.com/daily-digest/.

FOLLOW US Business North Carolina @BusinessNC Business North Carolina @businessnorthcarolina

Check out Business North Carolina’s weekly podcast on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. at

businessnc.com/ podcast/.

6

B U S I N E S S

DigitalComments_July 2021 .indd 6

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:21 PM

DigitalComments_July 2021 .indd 7

6/18/21 1:21 PM

RICHARD CHILDRESS The racing legend’s career includes pit stops in entrepreneurship, wildlife conservation, guns and winemaking.

BY VANESSA INFANZON

W

visiting California vineyards when he raced in Sonoma. In 2004, Childress Vineyards opened in Lexington. Wines created from European varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio and native grapes such as muscadine are available in the tasting room, gift shop, online or in the winery’s Bistro restaurant.

Off the track, Childress was a longtime supporter of the National Rifle Association, rising to first vice president of the group’s board.

With a scandal brewing over mishandled funds by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, he stepped down in 2019, citing business obligations. Several other board members made the same decision. The NRA is now facing pressure by the New York attorney general to dissolve.

Childress and Judy founded the nonprofit Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma in 2008. Along with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, the group conducts research on preventing severe injuries in children. He served on the board of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and supports wetland conservation nonprofit Ducks Unlimited and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a conservation and pro-hunting organization.

Comments are edited for length and clarity.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RICHARD CHILDRESS

inston-Salem native Richard Childress became famous during a storied career on the racetrack, competing against other stock-car racing legends and eventually landing in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Childress’ competitive spirit and winning attitude later drove him to other successful ventures, including heading a NASCAR team at the height of superstar Dale Earnhardt’s career. Later, Childress formed one of the state’s largest wineries.

At 75, Childress is chairman and CEO of Richard Childress Racing, headquartered on a 52-acre campus in Welcome, about 16 miles south of Winston-Salem. Since 1969, the family-owned business has grown to include two teams in the NASCAR Cup Series and a team in the Xfinity Series. It builds and engineers its own stock cars. Childress’ son-in-law, Mike Dillon, was a Busch Series driver in the mid-1990s and now serves as RCR’s executive vice president of business operations. Grandsons Austin and Ty Dillon, along with Tyler Reddick, are key team drivers.

Childress retired as a racer in 1981 with six top-five and 76 top-10 finishes. Meanwhile, RCR teams have collected more than 200 wins and 16 championships across the NASCAR series.

Childress and his wife, Judy, became interested in winemaking while

▲ Richard Childress never won a top-level NASCAR race, but he owned the team represented by the legendary Dale Earnhardt that earned six championships.

8

B U S I N E S S

Pillars_Childress_July-2021.indd 8

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:28 PM

▲ Grandsons Austin and Ty Dillon, left, began driving for his team, Richard Childress Racing, in the early 2000s.

After the race, Earnhardt came over to me sitting on the trailer wheel. He finished second. He came up in that Dale Earnhardt way, long, shaggy hair and moustache. Both of us were rough-looking kids back then. He poked me right in the chest and said, “Next time I race with you, I’m going to beat your ass.”

One of the first times I remember Dale Earnhardt was back in 1974 or 1975. My brother called me one night. He was chief steward at Caraway Speedway [in Sophia]. He said, “Boy, if you ever look for a driver, you need to watch for this Dale Earnhardt. He and Butch Lindley came across the line down here, and Dale had two wheels up on top of the wall and never lifted and won the race.”

I remember a race at Metrolina Speedway in Charlotte in 1974. On the last lap, I was in second with Cale Yarborough right in front of me. I knew there was one way to win, and that was by driving there. Cale and I got together on the last lap, and I ended up winning the race. Cale was really mad, but we were still friends after that.

In the early days, Junior Johnson helped mentor me through a lot of times and changes [and helped me understand] the sport. When I was driving, I’d buy used parts from him.

He sort of took a liking to me. In 1981, when Dale and I got together, I met with him at the Days Inn in Anniston, Ala. He said, “Let me tell you, Richard, there are a lot of race car drivers out there, but we don’t have a lot of car owners coming up. I think you’d make a better car owner than a driver.” So I took his advice.

I didn’t mentor [Dale Earnhardt]; I think we mentored each other. We had a partnership that was beyond a lot of expectations at the time. Two guys with the same personalities would never get along, but we proved a lot of people wrong.

Every time we’d load up to go to the racetrack, I’d say, “We’re taking our friends with us. We don’t have any friends at the racetrack.” And that way, you didn’t back off for nobody.

J U L Y

Pillars_Childress_July-2021.indd 9

2 0 2 1

9

6/18/21 1:28 PM

▲ Childress Vineyards opened in Lexington in 2004. With more than 70 acres of grapes, it produces more than 30 wine varieties.

of young superstars coming up that have followings. These newer, younger drivers are bringing their groups in. And [when] you get people involved like Michael Jordan and Pitbull, that just helps elevate the sport as well.

You went there to win, and you were mad if they took the trophy and the money. That was our motto: Take your friends with you if you’re going to win.

My favorite [drivers] are my two grandsons, Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon — to see them grow from where they started with a Bandolero car. One of the most expensive phone calls I ever got was when Ty Dillon asked me, “Poppop, you said if we ever wanted to go racing to give you a call.

We’re ready to go.” I laid a plan out for them, how we wanted to see them be successful.

I said, “Guys, you’re not going to race just to be racing. You’ve got to prove your way all the way through it.” Both [Austin and Ty] have won races and championships. They’ve proved it on their own. I’m really proud of them for what they’ve accomplished.

People still love racing. They’ll watch it when they can on TV. Our TV ratings are still good. Are they what they were in 2003, 2004 and 2005? Probably not. But the whole sport has changed. I think NASCAR has a bright future. They have a lot

10

B U S I N E S S

Pillars_Childress_July-2021.indd 10

N O R T H

When I first got into [winemaking], I went to a wine seminar at one of those hotels near the Greensboro airport.

All these local wineries had wine set up to drink. Man, I could hardly drink any of them. But North Carolina now has some really sophisticated wines. Our goal is to see every winery in North Carolina be successful. I wish we had one across the street and one at the next exit.

You see people coming in limousines, you see them coming in bus loads, you see them coming in groups. [There are] more birthday parties [at Childress Vineyards] than you can imagine.

You have to move with the trends. We go where the market is — that’s the key about the wine business and no different than racing. You have to be able to change with the times.

At first, we saw more wine connoisseurs. Now we’re getting such a different group and a younger group. They love to learn about the wine experience.

I do stuff with the military any chance I get. Before COVID, the first Wednesday of every month, we would have a veterans coffee [event at the winery]. The best one that still sticks in my mind today, we had about 1,200 veterans from all over. We had 82 World War II veterans there that day. We owe so much to that group. Most of them are in their mid-90s. I went around and shook their hands. ■

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:29 PM

J U L Y

Pillars_Childress_July-2021.indd 11

2 0 2 1

11

6/18/21 1:29 PM

INNOVATING FOR CHANGE Low Cash ModeSM, a new digital offering from PNC, is challenging the banking industry’s standard approach to overdrafts and delivering unprecedented account transparency and control to customers.

This is the twelfth in a series of informative monthly articles for North Carolina businesses from PNC in collaboration with BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA magazine.

As a college student with a tight budget, Drew watches his spending closely. He constantly monitors the balance of his checking account. And he never uses his debit card without first ensuring he has available funds to make a purchase. Yet despite his diligence, he has occasionally carried a negative balance. There was the time he failed to consider the timing of his quarterly car insurance automatic payment, the time he was billed a subscription fee after a trial period lapsed, and the time he wrote a check to avoid paying a card convenience fee – only for the payee to neglect cashing it until several weeks later after Drew had forgotten about it. Unfortunately these incidents came with a cost – in the form of overdraft fees.

Drew’s story is hypothetical, but his situation is not. Overdraft fees have long been an aggravation point for consumers – and not just for cash-strapped students. Anyone can experience a low-cash moment or mis-timed payment.

Some studies estimate that U.S. consumers pay up to $17 billion, or even more, in overdraft fees each year.

Enter Low Cash ModeSM from PNC, a new digital offering that is being rolled out to Virtual Wallet® customers nationwide, available via PNC’s Mobile Banking App.1, 2 Designed to help customers avoid overdraft fees, Low Cash ModeSM has several unique features that provide account transparency and the opportunity for customers to act before overdraft fees are assessed. Payment Control, for example, allows customers to decide whether to pay or return certain transactions when their balance is negative – rather than the common industry practice of the bank making the decision.3 Additionally, real-time Intelligent Alerts4 let customers know when their balance

12

B U S I N E S S

PNC_spread_July 2021_ver2.indd 12

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

is low; if it is negative, Low Cash ModeSM provides at least 24 hours of Extra Time, and often more, to prevent or address overdrafts before fees are charged.5 While Low Cash ModeSM doesn’t eliminate the possibility that a customer could still pay overdraft fees, Payment Control, Intelligent Alerts and Extra Time enable customers to take action to avoid them. They can, for example, decide to allow a critical payment to be processed while returning others. They can use Extra Time to bridge the gap between a payment and payday. They can replenish the account after forgetting about a recurring monthly charge. In a pre-launch pilot conducted earlier this year with nearly 20,000 customers, Low Cash ModeSM helped pilot participants, representative of a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic segments, collectively reduce overdraft fees by more than 60%.

PUTTING TECHNOLOGY TO WORK The technology that has allowed the financial services industry to embrace real-time payments and move away from processing payments in batches is ultimately what has enabled PNC to develop Low Cash ModeSM. For Weston Andress, PNC regional president for Western Carolinas, the introduction of Low Cash ModeSM underscores how digital innovation and PNC’s sustained investments in technology are yielding improvements to the customer experience. “At PNC, we continually evaluate opportunities to enhance our capabilities and solutions to provide our customers with even more control, insight and support – all to help them move forward financially,” says Andress. “Low Cash ModeSM is the latest tangible example of how we are innovating for the good of our customers.”

SPONSORED SECTION

6/21/21 3:25 PM

THE RIGHT THING TO DO With the implementation of Low Cash ModeSM, PNC expects to help its customers avoid approximately $125 million to $150 million in overdraft fees annually. While that means less fee revenue for PNC, it’s a price the bank is willing to pay, says Jim Hansen, PNC regional president for Eastern Carolinas.

“We strongly believe this is the right move for our customers and our organization,” says Hansen. “We’re empowering customers to take an active role in their finances and take control of decisioning and prioritization. In shifting away from the industry’s widely used overdraft approach, which drives customer dissatisfaction and is unsustainable from our perspective, we believe this offering will help strengthen relationships with our customers over time as PNC continues to grow.”

For more information, visit your nearest PNC branch or visit www.pnc.com/lowcashmode.

REGIONAL PRESIDENTS: Weston Andress, Western Carolinas: (704) 643-5581 Jim Hansen, Eastern Carolinas: (919) 835-0135 Important Legal Disclosures and Information 1. Low Cash Mode is available on select Virtual Wallet products at this time and is only available on the Spend account of your Virtual Wallet product.

2. PNC does not charge a fee for Mobile Banking. However, third party message and data rates may apply. These include fees your wireless carrier may charge you for data usage and text messaging services. Check with your wireless carrier for details regarding your specific wireless plan and any data usage or text messaging charges that may apply. Also, a supported mobile device is needed to use the Mobile Banking App. Mobile Deposit is a feature of PNC Mobile Banking. Use of the Mobile Deposit feature requires a supported camera-equipped device and you must download a PNC mobile banking app. Eligible PNC Bank account and PNC Bank Online Banking required. Certain other restrictions apply. See the mobile banking terms and conditions in the PNC Online Banking Service Agreement.

3. Payment Control applies to certain individual checks, and payments made using your routing and checking account numbers (ACH transactions). Debit card transactions do not qualify for Payment Control. When you choose to return an item that has been presented to PNC for payment, we will return the item to the payee’s bank for insufficient funds, and the payee will not receive payment from PNC. You may still have an obligation to pay the payee for goods, services or other products. PNC is not responsible for satisfying any obligations between you and the payee or any other party with respect to an item you decide to return. Before choosing to return an item, you should consider rules the payee may have or actions the payee may take on late/returned payments. Overdrawing an account, maintaining a negative available balance for any period of time, and returning transactions as unpaid may have other consequences, including account closure or negative impacts to your ability to obtain financial services including loans, deposit accounts, and other services at PNC and other institutions.

4. PNC Alerts are free to customers. However, third party message and data rates may apply. These include fees your wireless carrier may charge you for data usage and text messaging services. Check with your wireless carrier for details regarding your specific wireless plan and any data usage or text messaging charges that may apply.

5. In order to avoid overdraft fees, you must bring the available balance in your account to at least $0 before your Extra Time expires. If you make a deposit, the time it takes for your deposit to be reflected in your available balance and for those funds to become available to you will vary based on the deposit type and time. Depending on your deposit type or your deposit time, your deposit may not be available before your Extra Time period expires, and you may incur overdraft fees. See your Funds Availability policy for more information. Overdrawing an account, maintaining a negative available balance for any period of time, and returning transactions as unpaid may have other consequences, including account closure or negative impacts to your ability to obtain financial services including loans, deposit accounts, and other services at PNC and other institutions.

Low Cash Mode is a service mark of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. Virtual Wallet is a registered trademark of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC is a registered mark of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (“PNC”).

Zelle® and the Zelle® related marks are wholly owned by Early Warning Services, LLC and are used herein under license.

Bank deposit products and services provided by PNC Bank, National Association. Member FDIC ©2021 The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

PNC_spread_July 2021_ver2.indd 13

J U L Y

2 0 2 1

13

6/21/21 3:26 PM

NC TREND

First take: Legal affairs

■ ADULT EDUCATION Page 18

■ CHILD CARE Page 20

■ AIR PURIFIERS Page 22

■ DEVELOPMENT Page 24

■ STATEWIDE Page 26

PAINFUL PAYBACK THE STATE MULLS AN OPIOID SETTLEMENT THAT MAY RECOUP NEARLY $50 MILLION A YEAR.

B Y E D WA R D M A R T I N

I

n memories, Alyssa, a teen with ringlets of dark hair, her sleepy eyes closed, snuggles with her younger brother in the back seat of the family SUV. Separately, in another time and place, Matthew, 39, a mason, displays a strong, assured smile.

Both were from western North Carolina, though more than geography unites them. When Matthew hurt his back, his doctor prescribed oxycontin, or what some of his buddies jokingly called hillbilly heroin. Over 10 years, as the drug’s magic faded, he supplemented it with fentanyl, 25 times more magical.

Like many kids, Alyssa learned about pain from routine childhood fractures, sprains and trips to the dentist. Unlike most, says her mother, she received pills that seemed to hit a special spot. At Swannanoa’s Warren Wilson College, where she developed her artistic talents, she met a classmate who’d

suffered multiple sports injuries. Heroin, they discovered, helped their prescription pills hit the special spot more quickly, more powerfully.

United in death, their overdoses pieced together from caseworkers and family, Alyssa and Matthew could soon become

SUPPLY CHAIN

Top five distributors of opioids in North Carolina from 2006-14

Cardinal Health

721.6 million pills N.C. Mutual Wholesale Drug

639.9 CVS

363.7 Walmart

333.6 McKesson

330.3 source: The Washington Post, based on federal records

14

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Opioid_July 2021.indd 14

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:38 PM

part of a history-making opioid-drug settlement. N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein, social workers and county officials from across the state say they will hold accountable manufacturers and sellers who, mainly since the 1990s, promoted synthetic painkillers like fentanyl, oxycodone and hydrocodone as safe and nonaddictive.

More than 16,000 Tar Heels have died of opioid-related causes in recent years, Stein says. In response, his office has worked with peers nationally to hold accountable those who benefited from surging drug sales.

The potential N.C. settlement is expected to total $850 million over 18 years, or nearly $50 million a year. It parallels one leveraged from tobacco manufacturers 23 years ago tied to the harmful effects of cigarettes. In both instances, Stein says, “corporations were making enormous amounts of money selling products that were harmful to human health.”

In Buncombe County, where Matthew and Alyssa died, the head of the county commissioners agrees. “We felt we had a strong case that some of the actors who contributed to this crisis are the very ones that should be held accountable in addressing it,” Chairman Brownie Newman says.

Buncombe, one of the first U.S. counties to sue the drug industry, underscores what Stein describes as “the worst drug epidemic in the nation’s history.”

During an eight-year period studied by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Buncombe pharmacies handed out nearly 100 million opioid pills, an average of 45 oxycodone, fentanyl and similar ones per person per year. Statewide, the total exceeded 3.4 billion. A single pharmacy, Walmart in Henderson, distributed more than 9 million between 2006-14.

The state is part of a potential national agreement with

drug manufacturers Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma and distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health. Details were still being negotiated in mid-June with a signing likely this summer. “We’re making progress on many fronts, and I hope to reach a resolution shortly,” Stein says. “If we don’t, I will not hesitate to go to court to make them pay.”

More than 70 of the state’s 100 counties and eight municipalities are parties to the agreement. All will benefit, in any case.

It’s a different strategy than the much larger 1996 Tobacco Master Settlement, in which the $3 billion received by the state so far has been directed to the state’s general fund and North Carolina’s rural counties, reflecting the impact of reduced tobacco farming. The state-chartered Golden LEAF Foundation, which administers about half of the tobacco settlement money, had $1.3 billion in assets as of May. “The tobacco settlement was intended to change the practices of an industry, and particularly to reduce smoking among teenagers,” Stein says. Industry critics say that hasn’t happened because North Carolina and other states haven’t spent enough to discourage young people from smoking.

BAT, Philip Morris and other big companies have shifted to flavored cigarettes to entice new smokers and created ecigarettes, first marketed in 2007 and now with $6 billion in annual sales. Many public health officials view vaping, though promoted as less harmful than cigarettes, as a gateway product to smoking.

The minutely detailed battle plan for opioids reveals substantial differences. Virtually all of the national settlement is intended to go to health departments and caseworkers

DRUG DISPENSERS

Top five pharmacies distributing the most opioid pills in North Carolina from 2006-14

Omnicare Pharmacy of North Carolina, Hickory

12.8 million pills Neil Medical Group, Kinston

9.5 Walmart Pharmacy 10-1242, Hendersonville

9.2 Clinton Drug Co., Clinton

8.9 Carolina Apothecary, Reidsville

8.7 source: The Washington Post

J U L Y

Trend_Opioid_July 2021.indd 15

2 0 2 1

15

6/18/21 1:38 PM

NC TREND

First take: Legal affairs

who best know local needs, says Ronnie Smith, who chairs the Martin County Commissioners and the N.C. Association of County Commissioners.

Stein and Smith say it’s likely that 80% of the money will go directly to counties, 15% for state lawmakers to appropriate and 5% to counties to help the state implement policies.

There is no plan for a permanent Golden LEAF-type fund.

Newman and others say that drugmakers used huge promotional budgets to press doctors and pharmacies to prescribe opioids. Physicians often wrote prescriptions for 30-day supplies of oxycontin and similar opioids when patients needed only short-term relief — if any at all.

In Martin, a rural county north of Greenville, federal drug authorities found pharmacies and doctors had distributed 11 million pills in eight years, about 60 per year per person.

“We’ve only got 22,000 people,” Smith says. “But the opioid problem does not stop at county lines. I’ve had people come to me with tears in their eyes, telling me they’ve lost a son, a daughter, a loved one. We all know someone affected.”

Unlike illegal street drugs such as crack, the abuse of legally

16

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Opioid_July 2021.indd 16

N O R T H

prescribed opioids is worse in some of North Carolina’s rural rather than urban counties. While the DEA computed Mecklenburg’s and Wake’s rates at fewer than 25 pills per person per year, the rate was 60 in rural Moore. A pharmacy in the eastern Moore crossroads of Vass dispensed 8.3 million.

North Carolina opioid deaths have dropped in recent years as lawsuits such as Buncombe County’s, massive civil actions such as the pending opioid settlement and public awareness have sunk in.

“Opioids have a legitimate place in the health care of this country, and we’re not trying to ban the product,” Stein says. “We just want to ensure any prescription is medically appropriate.”

Unfortunately, the trend of fewer opioid-related deaths in recent years reversed in 2020 because of the impact of COVID-19, Stein says. “The factors that fuel addiction, things like anxiety, isolation and job loss, have increased in the last 14 months. We have a hard job ahead of us.”

In Asheville, those who knew them say the stakes are lives like those of Matthew, Alyssa and scores of others. ■

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:39 PM

13-14 SEPTEMBER

2021

Please join us for a day and a half of collaboration, learning, and networking featuring relevant panel discussions and speakers, as well as golf on Pinehurst No. 2 and the new Short Course The Cradle, and the Pinehurst Spa Experience. Lodging at the stately Carolina Hotel is included with your registration.

Visit businessnc.com/ceosummit or more information.

Visit businessnc.com/ceosummit or contact Norwood Teague at 919.370.0627 or nteague@businessnc.com for more information.

2021 PRESENTING SPONSORS

Trend_Opioid_July 2021.indd 17

6/18/21 1:39 PM

NC TREND

Adult education

SETTING SAIL NEW PROGRAMS TO TRAIN EASTERN N.C. BOAT BUILDERS GAIN INFLUENCE AS WATERCRAFT COMPANIES ENJOY HEFTY DEMAND.

B Y TAY L O R WA N B A U G H

W

18

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Carteret-Boat_July 2021.indd 18

N O R T H

▲ Beaufort Community College is launching two programs in boat manufacturing and repair this fall.

ships and boats, ranking eighth in the nation, according to labor market analytics firm Emsi. Jobs in the N.C. industry have an annual average salary of $63,366, while the number of boatbuilding jobs grew 5% from 2016-20.

“As long as the economy stays strong and there are people out there who want to enjoy the water, [the boating industry] is going to keep rolling,” Jones says. “I think there is going to be more demand for educational institutions like us to come up with programs like this because just like everything else, boats are becoming more and more advanced. These skills are going to have to be taught.”

Beaufort’s new programs are funded in part by the Golden LEAF Foundation, which provided a $200,000 grant for equipment and to hire an instructor. The Rocky Mount-based foundation directs money collected from the 1999 legal settlement with the big U.S. tobacco companies to aid economic development, mostly in rural areas.

Jones is an East Carolina University graduate who previously worked in various engineering and production roles at Greenvillebased sportfishing boat maker Grady-White Boats. The community college is seeing a lot of interest in the curriculum from local manufacturers and students, he says. Its new Beaufort Promise program, which will cover all tuition and fees for students through the spring 2023 semester using various federal and state programs, is also enticing future boat builders.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BEAUFORT COMMUNITY COLLEGE

ith about 322 miles of ocean shoreline and dozens of lakes and rivers running across the state — 5,201 square miles of water area, to be exact — North Carolina is an ideal location for boat builders. Its liquid assets caught the eye of one of the world’s largest fishing and recreational boat builders earlier this year: White River Marine Group in May said it bought New Bernbased Hatteras Yachts, among the state’s most famous boat manufacturers, paying an undisclosed price to a private-equity group that had owned the business.

The acquisition is huge news for eastern North Carolina’s boating industry as White River said it wants to solidify New Bern as the “world’s capital for saltwater gamefish and boat building” with plans for a $34 million expansion and as many as 500 new jobs. Hatteras’ new owner has credibility to make such claims because it’s part of a holding company that owns outdoor retail giants Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s, which have combined annual sales of $6.5 billion.

With hundreds of new jobs comes the need to stock the pipeline of boat-building workers in an area that includes manufacturers such as Pamlico Yachts and Caldwell Marine. Local community colleges are stepping up to fill the gap.

Beaufort County Community College in nearby Washington is launching two programs in boat manufacturing and repair at Beaufort County Skills Center this fall. Enrollees can earn a diploma or third-party and postsecondary credentials, learning about production of both contemporary boats that involve fiberglass and electronics and higher-end models that require wood craftsmanship skills. Wilmington’s Cape Fear Community College is offering similar boat-manufacturing programs.

“Basically, from start to finish, students are going to come in, they're going to learn the basic skills to get the project going,” says Connor Jones, Beaufort Community College’s lead boat-building professor. “And over the course of three semesters, they're going to complete a whole boat and see a finished product.”

The recreational boating industry has a $5.5 billion annual impact on North Carolina’s economy and supports more than 20,100 jobs, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association. North Carolina has 69 establishments that build

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:46 AM

PHOTO COURTESY OF MJM YACHTS

▲ Pamlico Yachts is among dozens of boat manufacturers based in North Carolina.

“Right now, classes are set up from Monday to Thursday, from 8 a.m. to around noon,” Jones says. “That gives students the opportunity to hold jobs in the afternoon if they want. We've had some local companies express interest in having employees do both.

And there will be internships. We are going to be working with manufacturers to get people part-time jobs and then secure them jobs after they graduate as well.”

The manufacturing and repair programs give students a head start needed to jump into the industry.

“There's nothing like being diverse and knowing all the skills it takes to build a boat from start to finish," Jones says. "You can't really put a value on someone that knows multiple skills that you can put on any job at any time. And that's just going to help our students succeed in the workplace.” ■

J U L Y

Trend_Carteret-Boat_July 2021.indd 19

2 0 2 1

19

6/21/21 8:46 AM

NC TREND

Child care

KIDDIE BUSINESS SLAMMED BY THE PANDEMIC, N.C. CHILD CARE OPERATORS REBOUND WITH A HAND FROM UNCLE SAM.

BY CONNIE GENTRY

R

unning at 17% capacity isn’t a viable option for a child care center, but that was the scene early in the coronavirus pandemic at the Kiddie Academy of Charlotte-Blakeney. Only 30 children were showing up in March 2020 at the center licensed for 172. Enrollment rebounded to 135 students within three months, but the recovery was slower than expected with more parents working from home and watching their kids.

“We were normally operating at full capacity with a yearlong waitlist,” says David Willis, owner of the 10-year-old center near the South Carolina line. “We thought we’d be back closer to normal after the beginning of the year, but a lot of families have kept their kids at home.”

The center serves families in affluent parts of Mecklenburg and Union counties, which helped the business recover more quickly than many peers, says Willis, a Republican elected to the N.C. House of Representatives last year.

Enrollment throughout North Carolina’s licensed child care centers declined from more than 265,000 children pre-pandemic to 60,000 in April 2020. It rebounded to 221,590 by this May. About 100 licensed centers have closed, leaving 5,678 as of April 30, according to state records. About 38,000 teachers and staff work in the industry versus 41,000 before the pandemic.

“Day care workers are the essential workforce behind other essential workers,” says Susan Gale Perry, deputy secretary at the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. “The pandemic shone a spotlight on child care’s essential role as the bedrock of our economy for parents to work.”

With thin profit margins, the child care industry relies on filling nearly every seat. Vacancies ran as high as 80% last year, then declined to 50% to 60% through much of the crisis, Perry

20

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Childcare_July 2021.indd 20

N O R T H

says. Only in the past two months has the rate dipped to 30%.

Because of child care’s vital role, lawmakers are showering the industry with money. The March stimulus package passed

by Congress provides $1.3 billion to support child care in North Carolina. About $500 million helps recruit and retain workers and decrease the waiting list of children from lower-income families, The other $800 million helps providers reopen or remain in business, according to N.C. DHHS. Other stimulus included the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided a $194,000 forgivable loan to Kiddie Academy.

Willis says that was critical to his business’ survival. Half of the 35 employees at Kiddie Academy were furloughed during the height of the crisis, but the center remained open. It’s back to 31 employees with plans to hire more.

Statewide, staffing shortages remain common with average pay of $12 an hour. “We are never going to win by competing for the lowest-wage workers,” Perry says.

As work situations change for many families in a post-pandemic economy, Perry foresees more options to provide child care in less-than-full-day increments and to meet the needs of shift workers with fluctuating schedules. “One of the lessons learned is that we can’t separate child care and education,” she says.

The pandemic amplified the need for the industry, “not only as

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:35 PM

a caretaker but also as an early educator,” says Andrew “Sandy” Weathersbee, who runs Providence Preparatory School in Charlotte with his wife, Betsy. Their 9-year-old school has capacity of 345. The school closed last April and May, but it paid its 75 teachers and staff through the shutdown, aided by a $683,000 PPP loan. “[The] loan last April helped us maintain and kept us from being in a red ink event,” says Weathersbee, who is a board member of Smart Start, a state-supported initiative that promotes child care. “We were about 90% enrolled in March of 2020, and we are at least at that level of enrollment now.”

He expects federal and state lawmakers will eventually approve two years of public funding for prekindergarten students.

The Biden administration is proposing $200 billion for “Universal Pre-K” for children ages 3 and older; Gov. Roy Cooper is an advocate, along with SAS Institute CEO James Goodnight and other N.C. business leaders.

But some child care operators are less enthusiastic. Weathersbee worries that public funding will make it more difficult for private schools to compete for teachers.

“Universal free child care is not an answer; we don’t need to become a nanny state at the state or federal level,” Willis says.

He favors boosting child care subsidies in the tax code. “We have to bring everyone to the table — businesses, legislators and par-

ents — and we have to do this sooner rather than later. Parents need to be a large part of the education for their children.”

Weathersbee supports boosting child care salaries “up to par with public school teachers, who are also underpaid. After this past year, companies understand the relevance of early education to the workforce. Whether parents are working remotely or in an office, they can’t be effective if they don’t have good child care.” ■

STATE STEPS UP North Carolina provided $336 million in child care subsidies during the first 10 months of the 2021 fiscal year. Providers in six counties received more than 40% of the total.

Wake $41 million Mecklenburg 40 Guilford

23

Durham 15.8 Cumberland 14 Forsyth 12.6 source: N.C. Department of Health and Human Services

J U L Y

Trend_Childcare_July 2021.indd 21

2 0 2 1

21

6/18/21 1:36 PM

NC TREND

Air purifiers

BREATH OF FRESH AIR DEMAND FOR CLEANLINESS AND A SLEEK DESIGN ARE PROPELLING A RALEIGH AIR-PURIFICATION COMPANY.

BY LAURA BRUMMETT

A

s a father, Peter Mann felt helpless watching his young son wrestle with asthma and struggling to breathe. After trying nearly every air purifier on the market and watching them all fail to alleviate his son’s respiratory problems, Mann set out to find a solution.

Approximately 25 million Americans have asthma, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Mann’s mission was simple: create a machine that cleaned the air like it was supposed to and help millions of asthma patients and allergy sufferers breathe easier.

His Raleigh-based company had been successful since its inception in 2009, selling the high-quality air purifiers online.

But for Mann’s company, Oransi — and the rest of the world — March 2020 changed everything. The COVID-19 pandemic caused an almost immediate uptick in demand, nearly doubling revenue to $20 million in 2020 from the previous year.

“Every day was like Black Friday,” Mann says, adding that the unprecedented wildfires in California increased sales as well.

The market for the purifiers also shifted from consumers, as schools and businesses increased sanitation regulations in the wake of the pandemic. Now, about 50% of Oransi’s customers are corporate. Its purifiers range from about $279 to $1,595 and have been featured on CNN and in Huffington Post and Women’s Health magazine.

22

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Oransi_July 2021.indd 22

N O R T H

▲ Amid the pandemic, revenue doubled in the past year at air-purifier maker Oransi.

Design excellence

Oransi’s concept was to create the highest-quality air purifier on the market, since Mann had not found one that worked well for his son. Many products use electronic filtering, which can produce ozone or other harmful byproducts, Mann says. “If you're someone with asthma, that's like you're solving one problem and creating another one.”

His goal was to create a purifier that was as effective and safe as possible. The end result uses a filter that removes 99.9% of airborne allergens and particulates as it quietly circulates large amounts of air.

Six years ago, Oransi started a partnership with Charlottebased design firm Boltgroup to revamp the look of the purifiers. Since air purifiers typically sit in the open in people’s homes, consumers prefer a visually pleasing product. Instead of working with traditional square filters used in other purifiers, Boltgroup suggested a cylindrical filter. This allowed for the product to be a sleeker cylinder shape instead of a cube. It won an iF Design Award for product design earlier this year.

Oransi’s two new models, which have launched in the past 10 months, also feature a user-friendly touchscreen operating system. The company has seven different models with combined sales likely to reach 50,000 this year.

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 1:41 PM

Becoming Oransi

Mann is a Navy veteran who earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Rochester and a master’s in engineering management from the University of South Florida. After serving in the Gulf War, he returned to civilian life and worked for a hospital-garment manufacturer then joined Florida-based computer distributor Tech Data. He worked his way up to director of marketing as the company’s revenue topped $20 billion, then jumped to Austin, Texas-based Dell, where he helped launch the company’s printer sales.

After Dell he started Alen, an e-commerce company selling tankless water heaters, portable air conditioners and air purifiers. Inspired to make his own purifiers, he sold his interest in Alen to go all in on his new venture.

The name Oransi comes from the Finnish word for orange, reflecting Mann’s ancestry and in homage to his grandmother, who was born in Finland. Impressed with the Nordic culture’s appreciation for simplicity, nature and kindness, Mann notes that oranges are often associated with rejuvenation. He finds the name fitting because air purifiers can help people with respiratory health problems.

Boltgroup tries to weave the elegant, simple Nordic aesthetic into the products’ designs, says Kurt Rampton, vice president of product design.

“We thought a lot about products in the spaces where Oransi wants to do business. They feel a little bit cold and mechanical,” Rampton says. “You don't really feel a human side to it. These are products with a little bit of freshness, liveliness and personality.”

App advance

Oransi makes its products under contract with a Chinese company but recently purchased a 159,000-square-foot manufacturing plant on 13 acres in Radford, Va. It hopes to relocate production there, cutting lead times and allowing for expansion.

The 17-employee company also has a website and an app launching this month that will describe the air quality of consumers’ locations, including the pollen count and air pollution levels.

For Mann and Rampton, the international design award was nice, but positive customer reviews are more rewarding. “These are very prestigious global awards,” Rampton says. “But it's almost more satisfying when you read those personal reviews of the user. They're talking about how it's made this change in their health and their family's well-being, and then they're also talking about how they love the design.” ■

A PERSONAL, ENGAGING LOOK AT MORE THAN 500 OF NORTH CAROLINA’S MOST INFLUENTIAL LEADERS

TO PURCHASE INDIVIDUAL COPIES GO TO:

www.geni.us/powerlist2021 J U L Y

Trend_Oransi_July 2021.indd 23

2 0 2 1

23

6/18/21 1:41 PM

NC TREND

Development

GEM MINING BEST KNOWN AS DIAMOND MERCHANTS, WILMINGTON’S ZIMMERS HAVE TALL PLANS FOR RALEIGH.

BY DAN BARKIN

D

24

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Zimmer_July 2021.indd 24

N O R T H

▲ Landon Zimmer

company CSX for a walkway over the tracks that run at the back of the property.

Over the past decade, construction has been constant in downtown Raleigh with once-overlooked properties receiving renewed interest. The boom has pushed outward toward downtown’s edges — the Warehouse District, Glenwood South — and more recently, on the north side of downtown, along Capital Boulevard and Peace Street.

On the west side of Capital, across from the Zimmer site, John Kane developed the sprawling Smokey Hollow complex of offices, luxury apartments and a Publix supermarket. Around the corner from the Zimmer site, on the east side of Capital, the $300 million Seaboard Station expansion is adding hundreds of apartments, as well as retail and restaurants.

A family business The Zimmer family has been active in North Carolina for 75 years. After World War II, veteran William Zimmer and his wife, Roberta, settled in Wilmington and bought a jewelry store downtown. They named it Reeds, which was the name of a jewelry business his family operated in the Buffalo, N.Y., area. The Southern, separate Reeds has grown to span

PHOTO COURTESY OF LANDON ZIMMER

owntown Raleigh has become a sea of construction, with new, towering projects in various stages of development looming overhead. Some developers, including Landon Zimmer, are hoping to add to the skyline, eyeing proposed buildings as tall as 40 stories — big even by Raleigh standards.

Zimmer is a managing partner of Wilmington-based Zimmer Development, a commercial developer founded by the family that launched the Reeds Jewelers chain in 1946. The real estate business includes a wide portfolio of retail, apartment and student housing projects. At one point, Zimmer Development was Food Lion’s largest landlord. In its home city, Zimmer Development is working with New Hanover County on plans for a new library and museum complex that will include residential and office space.

But the company has always wanted to do a project in downtown Raleigh, says Zimmer. Its vision includes a 40-story tower with retail, office and residential space on a 3.3-acre site at the corner of Peace Street and Capital Boulevard.

“We really are bullish on the city and downtown,” he says.

“We love the property.”

The company is studying how the impact of COVID-19 will affect demand for office space. Wake County continues to attract new companies and residents, offsetting some of the work-from-home drag on commercial leasing. Like most developers, Zimmer is seeking a large tenant.

“We know we’re going to go forward with at least some residential and retail, but how much office and how much spec office we’re going to build is a good question.”

There’s actually enough land at the location, he says, for two towers. “That’s not in the plan, but it’s a possibility.” The company has approval from Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 11:21 AM

The Zimmer family's real estate reach ■ 260 projects ■ 140 cities ■ 18 states ■ 10,000 multifamily beds ■ 8 million square feet of retail space ■ $3 billion in developed assets CEO: Jeffrey Zimmer General counsel: Herbert Zimmer CFO: Joseph Wasserman source: Zimmer Development

PHOTO COURTESY OF ZIMMER DEVELOPMENT

▲ A rendering of the Zimmers' potential Raleigh office tower

13 states under the leadership of one of the Zimmers’ sons, Alan. Landon and other generations of Zimmers have learned the business by cleaning display cases and waiting on customers from a young age. It was a public company from 1986 to 2004, when it returned to family ownership.

In 1989, Bill and Roberta’s other sons, Jeffrey and Herbert, started Zimmer Development. The company and its partners have developed more than 260 projects in 140 cities. Bill and Roberta’s daughter, Arlene Schreiber, is director of leasing. (Bill and Roberta’s children honored their parents with a gift to help fund the Zimmer Cancer Center at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. It opened in 2000.)

The third generation in the development business includes Landon (Herbert’s son), as well as Emily Zimmer Moree and Lowell Zimmer (two of Jeffrey’s children).

Landon Zimmer, who handles market selection, project development and strategic planning, has undergraduate, law and MBA degrees from Duke University. He is a member of the state transportation board.

Keeping one family business going for generations is a huge challenge, let alone two of them.

“We see each other a lot socially,” Landon Zimmer says, “but we have to have organized times where we talk about

business. [We] still have a good time and enjoy each other’s company, but it’s a little more focused on business and keeping things organized and keeping things together. I kind of owe [his cousin] Genna Zimmer, who works at Reeds, for being the steward of that.”

One of Zimmer Development’s biggest projects was Mayfaire, a 400-acre mixed-use district with retail and residential in Wilmington that opened its first stores in 2004.

The Zimmers developed it with H.J. Brody and BrodyCo of Greenville. The partners sold Mayfaire Town Center and the Mayfaire Community Center in 2015 to mall developer CBL for $192 million. It was a good time to sell a shopping center.

Timing is important in the development business, especially with 40-story office towers. Zimmer Development can “proceed at our own pace and at our own design,” Zimmer says.

“There’s no timetable for us. When we have the perfect layout and, I guess, opportunity, that’s when we’re going to proceed,” he says. “There’s no rush on our behalf. We don’t need to move. We plan on that building being there a long time. A year or two, in the long run, isn’t going to really dictate our moves.” ■

J U L Y

Trend_Zimmer_July 2021.indd 25

2 0 2 1

25

6/21/21 11:19 AM

NC TREND

Statewide

CONE REVERSES COURSE B Y DAV I D M I L D E N B E R G

T

en months after Greensboro-based Cone Health agreed to combine with much larger Sentara Healthcare of Norfolk, Va., the two hospital systems called the deal off in a surprising move.

Cone issued a release announcing the decision, which was followed shortly by a statement from N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein, whose office had studied the transaction. “I have real concerns” about the hospital consolidation trends in North Carolina, he said, citing deals over the past three years involving Wake Forest Baptist Health and Atrium Health, Novant Health and New Hanover Regional Medical Center, and HCA Healthcare and Mission Health.

“Bigger doesn’t always mean better. In fact, it often means worse and more expensive,” he wrote. He also urged hospitals to be more transparent on their pricing policies. The systems say pricing is very complex and that increased scale creates efficiencies and greater investments in community benefits such as a new medical school planned in Charlotte by Wake Forest University and Atrium Health.

In its release, Cone said it concluded that staying independent would better serve the community, a reversal from its previous explanation that it needed to bulk up. That theory had won support from Mayor Nancy Vaughan, Greensboro Chamber CEO Brent Christensen and other leaders who agreed that adding a partner would help Cone compete against Triad rivals including Wake Forest Baptist and Novant.

Cone is Greensboro’s largest employer and is strong financially, reporting excess revenue of about $108 million in the first half of its 2021 fiscal year. Most of the gain came from

▲ Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital

increases in its investment portfolio, reflecting a strong stock market. Revenue gained nearly 10% to $1.26 billion.

Cone is now led by Mary Jo Cagle, the first woman and physician to lead the hospital that formed in 1953. She succeeded Terry Akin, who had been CEO since 2014.

Cone director Ed Cone, an heir to the iconic Greensboro family for whom the hospital is named, said on Twitter that Stein’s review had nothing to do with the deal termination.

He also noted that “Cone Health is among the least expensive — perhaps the least expensive — of major N.C. systems,” referring to health care prices. ■

T

wo recent mergers suggest another wave of consolidation among North Carolina’s banks is likely, buoyed by strong stock prices that make deals attractive.

Southern Pines-based First Bancorp, the biggest N.C.-based community bank, agreed to buy Dunn-based Select Bancorp for $314 million in stock. The combination would create a nearly $9 billion asset bank with offices from Dare County to Brevard. Select was formed in 2000 and is the result of mergers of banks in Greenville and Dunn. It has assembled 22 offices in the Carolinas and Virginia.

Separately, United Community Banks agreed to pay $131 million for Cornelius-based Aquesta Financial Holdings.

26

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 26

N O R T H

The Mecklenburg County bank started in 2006 and has assets of $750 million. Blairsville, Ga.-based United Community has grown here since buying Johnston County’s Four Oaks in 2017. Pending the deal’s completion, it will have about 35 N.C. offices.

While First Bancorp and United Community made purchases, New York-based JPMorgan Chase and Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp are building offices, mostly in Charlotte and the Triangle. JPMorgan plans about 40 offices in the state over five years, while Fifth Third says it will add 50 in North Carolina from 2021-23. ■

PHOTO COURTESY OF CONE HEALTH

BANK M&A FIRES UP

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:43 AM

CHARLOTTE MOORESVILLE Pet software startup Pet Screening raised $3 million in a funding round led

by Grotech Ventures. The 30-employee company says it will increase its workforce by 25% in 2021. It recently moved to a larger facility.

Lowe’s CEO and President Marvin Ellison added the chairman’s title. Former Chairman Richard Dreiling becomes lead independent director.

SALISBURY Catawba College received a record $13.7 million anonymous gift that cut its debt by 75%. The private college said it received more than $43 million in donations during its latest fiscal year.

Atrium Health, the biggest N.C.-based health care system, wants to raise $500 million over the next six years to support the new Wake Forest School of Medicine in Charlotte and other initiatives. The Giving Hope campaign will go toward education, research, access to care and infrastructure updates on Atrium’s main campus near downtown Charlotte.

General Motors started construction on its $45 million, 130,000-square-foot technical center here. It’s scheduled to open in early 2022. The center includes advanced virtual racing tools such as simulators, aero development and other software-enabled vehicle modeling technology.

DAVIDSON

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KHARRIS0317, ATRIUM HEALTH, HONEYWELL

Control, a Reading, England-based provider of telemetry technology for motorsports, opened an office here. It offers devices with advanced connectivity services for drivers to track their performance.

CHARLOTTE

CONCORD Florida recreational-vehicle dealership network RV Retailer opened a 50,000-square-foot University Training Center here. It’s the company’s third center opened this year.

Financial-services company USAA plans to open an office with 750 employees here. The San Antonio, Texas-based insurer and money manager is leasing six floors at The Square, a new South Endarea building. USAA has annual revenue of $36 billion.

Real estate developer Madison Capital Group, which specializes in apartments and self-storage, secured $75 million from Denver-based privateequity firm FrontRange Capital Partners.

The funds will pump up Madison Capital’s growth.

Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions started a 250-megawatt solar plant in Texas. Three companies will purchase the power generated by the proposed Pisgah Ridge Solar project, which will be completed by late 2022.

Honeywell is investing as much as $300 million for a 54% stake in a partnership with Cambridge Quantum Computing of Massachusetts. The joint venture is expected to create the largest standalone quantum-computing company.

Haley Gentry, a 30-plus-year employee at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, was named director. She is the first woman in the post.

J U L Y

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 27

2 0 2 1

27

6/21/21 8:43 AM

NC TREND

Statewide

GASTON COUNTY KNOLL America is investing more than $7.8 million to establish a U.S. headquarters and manufacturing facility in Apple Creek Corporate Park and adding 33 jobs. The U.S. subsidiary of the German-based KNOLL Maschinenbau GmbH supplies conveyor and filtration systems.

LendingTree, a 25-year-old online loan marketplace based in Charlotte, moved into a new headquarters on six floors of an 11-story South End-area tower. The 175,000-square-foot space includes 64 conference rooms, 27 open meeting areas, 771 workstations and alternative seating.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarded a $1.4 million grant to the E4 Carolinas nonprofit to support re-

28

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 28

N O R T H

search focused on nuclear technology and its economic benefits in the Southeast. The grant will be matched with $349,611 in local funds.

MOUNT AIRY Renfro Brands, a large sock manufacturer, was bought by family-owned The Renco Group, a New York-based private-investment group. Terms were not disclosed.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SPECTRUM COS.

TRIAD

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:43 AM

Greensboro-based aircraft manufacturer Honda Aircraft unveiled its HondaJet Elite, which will have a base price of $5.4 million.

It can fly as many as 130 miles farther and carry more weight than previous HondaJet models.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HONDA AIRCRAFT

WINSTON-SALEM Norcross, Ga.-based Pruitt Health, which has about 34 long-term health care facilities in North Carolina, bought about 17 acres here for potential development. The company operates about 180 nursing and rehabilitation centers.

Greater Winston-Salem Inc. is starting an investment fund to spark

growth in Forsyth County. The Winston-Salem Pledge Roundtable Fund is seeking as many as 70 members to invest seed-stage capital in WinstonSalem-based startups. Members will put up $30,000 to $60,000 for the opportunity to invest in deals.

Wake Forest Baptist Health opened a medical clinic to help prevent and treat injuries in the performing arts community while conducting research.

David Popli, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery, and Denise Tickle, a physical therapist, will lead the clinic.

LaTida Smith was tapped as president of the Winston-Salem Foundation. She is the first woman and first Black individual to head the nonprofit, which has assets of $618 million. Smith succeeds Scott Wierman, who now leads the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry in Hilton Head, S.C.

J U L Y

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 29

2 0 2 1

29

6/21/21 8:43 AM

NC TREND

Statewide

HIGH POINT

DURHAM

High Point University is studying adding academic schools in law, nursing and optometry while also possibly launching a doctor of medical sciences program. Earlier this year, the university announced plans to open a dental school.

MEBANE Lotus Bakeries is investing more than $62 million to expand its plant here, adding as many as 90 jobs. The new positions will pay an average annual salary of $43,282.

GREENSBORO The engineering school at N.C. A&T State University received $1 million from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation, which is based in Bethesda, Md.

TRIANGLE CARY Cornerstone Building Brands is selling its insulated metal panels business to Charlotte-based Nucor for $1 billion in cash.

The deal is expected to close later this year.

CHAPEL HILL The iconic Crook’s Corner restaurant is closing after four decades. Its owners say pandemic challenges led to the decision.

Duke University will receive $50 million from The Duke Endowment of Charlotte, the second phase of a $100 million award announced in 2019. The money will fund recruitment of faculty members in science, medicine, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is the largest gift in the university’s history.

EnMass Energy raised nearly $2.2 million from six investors. The company uses a cloud software platform to provide supply chain management for energy businesses.

Clinical-research services company CATO SMS acquired Nuventra, a clinical pharmacology science and services provider. Both are based here. Financial details were not disclosed.

30

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 30

N O R T H

Gilead Sciences signed a lease with Kane Realty to fill three floors in a North Hills office building. The pharmaceutical company is launching a businessservices center, adding 275 jobs with an average annual salary of $142,000.

Martin Marietta agreed to buy Irving, Texas-based Lehigh Hanson’s western U.S. regional business for $2.3 billion. It includes 17 quarries, two cement plants, and operations in California and Arizona. Separately the company sold its former office buildings in west Raleigh to real estate investment firm Chartwell Property Group for $17.6 million. It is moving to a new building in GlenLake Office Park.

After more than four decades, Duke University men’s basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski is retiring at the end of the 2021-22 season. He is the all-time winningest coach in Division I men’s basketball history.

Spoonflower is being sold to California-based online retailer Shutterfly in a $225 million deal expected to close in the third quarter. Spoonflower has more than 3 million users and 4,000 new designs uploaded daily. It moved into a 110,000-square-foot building in Research Tri-Center South in February.

Inhalon Biopharma, which focuses on treatments for respiratory infections, was awarded a $7 million contract by the U.S. Army Medical Research & Development Command. The funding will be used for a study of the startup’s technology for COVID outpatients.

WILSON’S MILLS Bartlett Milling — a subsidiary of Kansas City-based Savage Enterprises — is investing $28 million to expand its mill operations here in Johnston County. The flour company plans to add five positions.

RALEIGH

Terazo, a software-development company that is jointly based in Richmond, Va., and here, raised $10.5 million. The funding was led by Boston-based Tercera and will be used to add employees in Charlotte and remote workers.

Donald Thompson is stepping down as CEO of marketing company Walk West to become full-time CEO of The Diversity Movement, which advises businesses on equity and inclusion. He will remain board chairman of Walk West.

Michael Arriola was named North Carolina district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration. He has been part of the SBA N.C. branch since 2004.

Louisville, Ky.-based weather-intelligence company Climavision raised $100 million. The company, which has its research and development office here, plans to add a team of four or five people.

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:44 AM

J U L Y

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 31

2 0 2 1

31

6/18/21 1:56 PM

Statewide

EAST

Wilmington International Airport tapped Gary Broughton as interim director. Broughton, who was deputy director, succeeds Julie Wilsey. The New Hanover County Airport Authority voted to opt out of Wilsey’s employment agreement.

WILMINGTON McAdams Homes purchased 612 acres for $5.8 million here and 411 acres in Scotts Hill for $6 million. It has purchased about 160 acres in the same area over the past six months.

The company has plans to construct 5,000 homes in southern Pender County over the next decade.

Greensboro-based Bernard Robinson & Co., one of the Triad’s largest accounting firms, opened an office here July 1. Partner Tracey Flynn Martin relocated to set up the new location. BRC has 56 local CPAs and a staff of 116.

Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage and Jacksonville real estate organization Alliance Group Realty have merged. About 20 Alliance real estate agents have signed on to join Coldwell Banker.

Health care tech company TCS Healthcare Technologies acquired DataSmart Solutions, a Montanabased predictive risk analytics software company. Financial details were not disclosed. TCS moved its headquarters here from Auburn, Calif., in January.

LELAND Latitude Management Real Estate Holdings, a California-based investment firm, paid $67.5 million for an apartment community here. The complex includes 333 one- and two-bedroom units and more than 9,000 square feet of commercial space.

32

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 32

N O R T H

NEW BERN Aeronautical Systems is investing $5.6 million to expand its manufacturing operations here. The company will add 30 jobs, marking a potential payroll impact of more than $1.3 million per year.

MOREHEAD CITY The North Carolina Military Business Center opened an office at Carteret Community College. It also named Randy Chandler as business development professional and strategic industry professional.

ROCKY MOUNT Quest Diagnostics will establish its first facility in eastern North Carolina later this year with a patient service center and a laboratory next to Rocky Mount Family Medical Center.

GREENVILLE Mark Stacy is leaving as dean of the Brody School of Medicine and vice chancellor of the Division of Health Sciences at East Carolina University.

ECU Chancellor Philip Rogers named Jason Higginson as interim dean of the medical school. Ron Mitchelson was named interim vice chancellor of the health-sciences division.

WEST ASHEVILLE Avadim Health, which makes topical health care products, reached an agreement with its lender, Hayfin Capital Management, to sell most of its assets ahead of a filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. The company said it lost $138 million between 2018-20.

The historic downtown S&W Building reopened as S&W Market in midJune. The new dining hall features dozens of new restaurants and retailers, including Highland Brewing, Farm Dogs and Bun Intended.

NORTH WILKESBORO Gov. Roy Cooper proposed spending $45 million to overhaul three racetracks in North Carolina as part of $5.7 billion in federal stimulus money coming to the state. That includes $10 million each for North Wilkesboro Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Rockingham Speedway.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ILM

NC TREND

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 9:16 AM

PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON

J U L Y

Trend_Statewide_July 2021.indd 33

2 0 2 1

33

6/18/21 1:57 PM

ROUND TABLE

WESTERN N.C.

RISING HIGHER Western North Carolina’s beautiful views, recreational opportunities and unique amenities create a quality of life that’s hard to match anywhere else. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted those benefits, attracting more people and businesses to the mountains. While new development often brings good things, it also creates challenges. Following in the footsteps of the region’s hardy Scotch-Irish settlers, community and business leaders are digging in, working hard and creating clever responses. Business North Carolina gathered seven experts to discuss the issues, solutions and how they can be leveraged for an even better future.

A-B Tech, Asheville-Buncombe EDC, Biltmore Farms, Caldwell County EDC, First Citizens Bank and Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development sponsored the discussion, which was moderated by Business North Carolina Publisher Ben Kinney. It was edited for brevity and clarity.

34

B U S I N E S S

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 34

N O R T H

WHAT CHALLENGES DID THE PANDEMIC PRESENT? WHAT DID IT TEACH YOU? MURRAY: The past year was tough, but it was amazingly good, too. Furniture manufacturing was hit fast and hard.

Our unemployment rate jumped to 16.3% in April 2020. It hadn’t been that high since the Great Recession. We’ve recovered for the most part — unemployment was 4.5% in April, according to the most recent data from N.C. Department of Commerce. But the labor shortage and supply chain issues are causing fits as they are elsewhere.

C A R O L I N A

Caldwell County had one of its best years for new private investment and number of completed projects. Our project pipeline remains full and busy.

Partnerships and collaborations were the best things to come from the past year. The highest levels of leadership in health care, education, government, business and industry — everybody had a seat at the table. We meet regularly and will continue to as we move forward.

BURNETTE: While the region fared well over the past year, there were businesses, especially in the hospitality industry, that suffered. Many of them displayed

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:11 PM

resiliency, flexibility and adaptability, whether it was a restaurant moving to carry out only while on the fly or a manufacturer shifting to personal protective equipment production. Hospitality businesses continue to deal with the pandemic’s effects as they bounce back.

Manufacturers are doing well.

BRADY: When the world shut down in mid-March, we thought we would have two weeks to work on pet projects.

Boy, we were wrong. The first two weeks were dedicated to figuring out what was happening. Our manufacturing community was deemed essential, so its members needed to find ways to safely continue their work. We saw the pandemic’s problems and its opportunities. We had a company locate here instead of expanding internationally.

We saw health care continue to thrive with Jabil [Healthcare]’s $38 million expansion into Henderson County. It’s

expected to create 150 jobs by 2025.

The county’s unemployment rose to 14.6% in April 2020, falling to 3.6% one year later. But unemployment in the advanced-manufacturing sector was still 10% in late May. When it comes to the jobs that our organization caters to, we believe that the workforce is about 15,000 people short. We’re trying to be resilient and creative, keeping the momentum, meeting supply and demand, and fostering a successful manufacturing community.

TEAGUE: The past year was an interesting time. Biltmore Farms has hotels, office space and retail. Its land holdings include the 1,000-acre planned development Biltmore Park West, where aviation manufacturer Pratt & Whitney is investing $650 million to build a 1 million-square-foot factory and create 800 jobs. It’s expected to start manufacturing turbine airfoils next year. When

the tide of good fortune ebbs, you discover who you are and what you’re made of. The region’s brand is strong.

People come here to live healthy lives.

They view it as a respite, an outdoor mecca kind of place. But the pandemic also uncovered some of the region’s softer points. Hospitality can’t support everybody. It can’t be the mainstay of how we thrive. There were times over the past year, for example, when only a handful of Biltmore Farms’ hundreds of hotel rooms were booked. We have to continue to focus on manufacturing, corporate roles and creating career ladders, not just jobs. That’s what this Pratt & Whitney project represents. Many of its jobs pay about $70,000 annually. That’s a huge chunk of capital being injected into the market. But they also bring intellectual capital for our community. We’re excited about that. The region has an incredibly bright future.

PANELISTS

Brittany Brady president and CEO, Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development

Tom Dempsey founder and CEO, SylvanSport

Greg Burnette area executive, Western Carolina area, First Citizens Bank

John Gossett president, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College

Kit Cramer president and CEO, Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce

Deborah Murray executive director, Caldwell County Economic Development Commission

Ben Teague vice president of strategic development, Biltmore Farms J U L Y

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 35

2 0 2 1

35

6/18/21 3:12 PM

ROUND TABLE

WESTERN N.C. CRAMER: It has been the best of times and worst of times. We went from being No. 1 in the state with low unemployment to being at the top of that list soon after the pandemic’s start.

Our great restaurants, unique small businesses and hotels were quickly and severely impacted by shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. We’ve rebounded by about 24,000 jobs, but our working population remains below prepandemic levels. There’s a tendency for people statewide to see us as tourism-dependent. But we’re more than tourism. We landed Pratt & Whitney, the region’s largest manufacturing project in terms of investment and new jobs. The basics of our economy are strong, and I’m bullish about the future.

DEMPSEY: We were at full stop in late March 2020. A truckload of exhibit materials was pulling away from our

loading dock when we told its driver not to leave. We shifted to PPE production within a week. That kept our team working. It was fortuitous that we could shift quickly. If we waited one more week, it would have been too late. We are a manufacturer and a tourist destination.

Almost a thousand families pick up their camper at our factory each year, and many immediately start their vacation in western North Carolina. Our complete shift to selling direct to consumers began at the end of 2019, and our timing couldn’t have been better. The outdoor industry exploded about midway through last year as people pursued one of the only activities that respected pandemic-induced directives. We’ve set business records each month since last July. It’s a little awkward succeeding while others struggle because of no fault of their own. But we look at the silver lining and count our blessings.

GOSSETT: A-B Tech never closed because of the pandemic. We were still teaching. Students attended lectures online and only visited campus for labs and clinicals. I’m proud of my team, who implemented COVID precautions, keeping the pandemic at bay on campus.

But people were still fearful. And like most community colleges nationwide and all but a few in North Carolina, our enrollment declined. Broadband internet access contributed to that as did access to internet-capable devices. When K-12 schools switched to remote learning, many moms and dads stayed home.

We discovered that if those families had only one device, the school-aged child had first dibs. Mom and dad were forced to use it late at night or early in the morning. That pressure was too much, so many stepped away from their studies or workforce-development opportunities. We understand that people were forced to make choices.

We hear that they want to return to campus. We’re expecting an enrollment jump this fall.

THE REGION’S HIGH QUALITY OF LIFE ATTRACTS MANY PEOPLE. WHAT CHALLENGES DOES A GROWING POPULATION POSE? WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS? CRAMER: Neighboring communities will be affected by the Pratt & Whitney project, especially the number of people it will bring. We’re talking with homebuilders about it in terms of the current housing supply. We want them to focus on workforce housing. We need as much workforce housing as possible included in developments. We’ve been discussing ways to encourage it with local governments.

GOSSETT: We’ve had some prospective employees turn down a job offer because of living costs. If we stay within our pay scale, they can’t afford housing. It’s disheartening. So we have been developing local talent — people who already are living and playing in Buncombe County.

36

B U S I N E S S

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 36

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:12 PM

BURNETTE: Real estate in the region has become very attractive. More people are moving here from densely populated places, attracted by the quality of life.

There’s been a digital shift — individuals realizing that technology allows them to work from anywhere — underway for many years. But the pandemic is pushing that transformation. We need homebuilders to recognize this need. If I have property, how can I maximize the return on investment versus positively impact the community? The public and private sectors have to continue to talk about it and take action. There are a variety of programs to finance homes, so it’s not a capital issue. It’s an inventory issue.

MURRAY: The economic developer’s role has changed. A few years ago, it was novel to say you’re more about the holistic aspects of economic development. That’s the only way it works today.

Our housing issue is tough. The Great Recession stopped housing development.

We have aging single-family and multifamily homes. Our first new multifamily housing project that’s not subsidized housing happened this year. We’re celebrating, believing it will lead to more similar projects. We have the same approach to single-family development.

We need low-, middle- and high-tier housing. Many local employers mention losing potential employees because of a lack of housing. So the EDC assembled a booklet that details housing options. Finding them has required going farther outside the immediate area. We are growing our own workers through the local school system and the community college’s career and technical education programs. The EDC has a new summer jobs program, which introduces high school graduates to the working world. Opportunities in the region are

increasing. That’s worrisome because we need to fill the growing labor gap.

BRADY: It seems every time I pick up the newspaper, another proposed development has gone before city council or the planning department. The housing challenge comes with opportunities. We’ve developed a relocation guide, which we wouldn’t have done five years ago. It will help us land talent, including giving locals who left for college and hadn’t considered returning home a reason to move back. And so just like there is short-term, midterm and long-term strategies for workforce development, we believe there are short-term, midterm and long-term strategies for housing.

DEMPSEY: About half of our employees are from Henderson County. Some are from Buncombe County, and some are

J U L Y

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 37

2 0 2 1

37

6/18/21 3:12 PM

ROUND TABLE

WESTERN N.C. from upstate South Carolina. We’re recruiting for many technical positions, which pay well, but we’ve had to increase pay to cover living costs. I personally have helped find housing for folks that we want to hire. We just brought in a talented engineer from Texas. Fortunately, he and his wife live in a tiny house, so they relocated it to a tiny house village in Henderson County. If everyone could have that circumstance, it would lift a huge burden. We also are developing internal talent as it has becomes more difficult to relocate people quickly.

TEAGUE: It doesn’t matter how much you pay a person: It’s a problem if there’s nowhere for their child to go for a safe and quality education, especially as we leave the pandemic behind and more people return to work. And it’s not enough to just create jobs. Getting on the bottom rung of the career ladder is

38

B U S I N E S S

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 38

N O R T H

good. And having high-end jobs is good.

But it’s not good if you have to leave the region to climb the rungs in between.

We must create opportunities, so people can work their way up that ladder.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE REGION’S NEEDS? HOW CAN THEY BE ADDRESSED? GOSSETT: I came here last July in the middle of the pandemic. People made an effort to reach out to me, including A-B Tech in what they are doing and allowing us to share what we’re doing.

That collaborative attitude is exciting. We can’t live in silos. We have to work together; the lift is much lighter when we do. At a recent strategic planning meeting, we discussed more than which programs to add or subtract. We want to change higher education’s culture. In the past, students were on their own, and

C A R O L I N A

only the strong survived. We can’t do that anymore. We have to reach out to students and remove barriers, including offering child care and helping them land jobs. Those weren’t discussed when I started in higher education 30 years ago. They’re discussed daily today.

TEAGUE: Western North Carolina needs its regional perspective. We collaborate until the time that we need to compete.

I serve on the local advisory board of HCA Healthcare Mission Fund, a $25 million effort that invests in local companies working in the health care industry, helping them scale up through the nation’s largest health care system based on the number of hospital beds. That’s extremely powerful for venture-ready companies. The Pratt & Whitney project includes five community colleges, led by A-B Tech. It’s important to pool our resources so people can

SPONSORED SECTION

6/21/21 9:43 AM

bring everything to the table. We’re a great location for divisional or small corporate headquarters — operations of 50 to 250 employees. We would celebrate those opportunities, which historically have gone to big cities.

If you draw a 60-mile radius around Biltmore Park, for example, there are 2 million people. If you think of Greenville, S.C., and Asheville as one, it’s similar in size to Charlotte or Raleigh.

Companies that value a high quality of life in high-quality places have never been more mobile. So what attracts people to the region is a real economic opportunity moving forward.

DEMPSEY: I was part of the team that created Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina’s Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry. Several outdoor gear manufacturers have located in western North Carolina over

Downtown Asheville is home to dozens of restaurants, shops, company headquarters and residential units.

J U L Y

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 39

2 0 2 1

39

6/21/21 9:49 AM

ROUND TABLE TABLE ROUND

WESTERN N.C. the past year. It’s evidence that North Carolina is the East Coast’s leader in the outdoor-recreation industry. Our state’s outdoor assets are recruitment tools that appeal to companies in all industries. SylvanSport is a founding member of North Carolina Outdoor Recreation Coalition, which functions as a support mechanism at the state level. It’s bringing national and international attention to those amenities and the quality of life they create. Western North Carolina recently launched the Made by Mountains brand — Made X Mtns — which highlights the reasons why outdoor industry companies and brands are here.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR YOU AND THE REGION? DEMPSEY: We’re excited about the future, including how electric vehicles will shape the recreational-vehicle

40

B U S I N E S S

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 40

N O R T H

industry. SylvanSport is positioned to lead that change. Our current product line is well suited for that purpose, and we have some dynamic development and engineering going on in towables expressly designed for EVs. We have a lot of fun stuff on the horizon.

BRADY: The partnership worked with Henderson County and Hendersonville to develop 41-acre Garrison Industrial Park — where Jabil is building — at the end of last year. And to Joe Q. Public, that’s not a big deal. But we’ve literally moved mountains for economic development in western North Carolina. Its topography is a challenge for site development. The park is a historic joint venture, and we’re excited about its potential to expand the career pipeline in our community.

CRAMER: In addition to the pandemic, the country underwent a racial justice

C A R O L I N A

awakening over the past year. Through our work, including community visioning, we identified economic mobility of residents as one of our focuses. We received a Golden LEAF Foundation grant to help fund inclusive hiring partners. Chamber staff is working with companies that want to hire residents who are held back by generational poverty, a past interaction with the justice system or a history of substance abuse. I’m excited about the business community’s enthusiasm for the project, which is being undertaken in partnership with the housing authority, A-B Tech and several community-based nonprofits.

We’re confident it will move people up the economic ladder for the long term.

BURNETTE: As we reached mid-2020, when there was still a lot of uncertainty about the pandemic and its effects, we were in the middle of a conversion of

SPONSORED SECTION

6/21/21 9:43 AM

impact the region and open doors, including giving us access to verticals such as rail and other specialized lending.

The new Garrison Industrial Park is being developed on 41 acres in Henderson County.

working on a merger with CIT Group, which will make First Citizens one the country’s top 20 banks. It will positively

Photo credit: Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development

a bank in western North Carolina. That added difficulty to everything else that was happening. Looking forward, we’re

MURRAY: We’ve been growing a lifesciences and biotech cluster over the last eight years, adding several hundred jobs annually. We anticipate that its growth will accelerate within the next two years. It’s providing great opportunities and increasing the local average wage. We’re developing a world-class pharmacy tech program through the community college that will benefit pharmaceutical manufacturers here and across the region. That’s a turning point for us. We recently put under contract the land for the county’s first new industrial park in more than 20 years. It’s adjacent to the aforementioned cluster.

It’s part of the diversification of our local economy that has been underway since the Great Recession. ■

Round_Table_Western_July2021 .indd 41

6/21/21 9:44 AM

N.C. PORTRAITS

PROFESSIONAL WOMEN

EMPOWERING LIVES

by Alyssa Pressler If there’s one thing that can be learned from the group of women we profiled this year, it’s that relationships matter.

Each woman emphasized the importance of prioritizing people personally and professionally as something that has contributed to their overall success, passion and happiness. In industries including higher education, law, accounting, banking and transportation, women are creating real change in their communities and for North Carolina as a whole.

42

B U S I N E S S

Professional_Women_July2021.indd 42

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:18 PM

MARIANA QUBEIN PHILANTHROPIST FIRST LADY OF HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

LEADING BY FAITH Drive into High Point and you’ll see her name.

It’s on the new children’s museum and the new arena and conference center. It’s also on the sign at High Point University describing the 29 gardens and arboretum that have won awards and wowed young and old.

Yet, she shies from the limelight. Talk to her about her work, and she uses words like “we” instead of “me.” But she doesn’t mince words about why she supports her city and her alma mater. She knows it will help nurture the next generation. Her instruction manual for life springs from a short verse in the Book of Luke: “To whom much is given, much is required.” Mariana Qubein believes that.

“It’s always a group effort,” she says. “And without God, nothing happens.”

Qubein is part of High Point’s most influential team. She is the wife of HPU President Dr. Nido Qubein.

Dr. Qubein has led the $3 billion transformation of HPU, his alma mater, since coming onboard in 2005.

More recently, he has raised $110 million to reinvent a city he’s called home for more than a half century.

With most everything he does, Dr. Qubein looks to his wife for guidance.

communications@highpoint.edu High Point, N.C. highpoint.edu/gardens

Their friends see Mariana as her husband’s North Star, his moral compass. Together, they inspire one another, and they’ve helped High Point grow.

Qubein is HPU’s First Lady. She advocates for students, hosts HPU’s Arbor Day and works diligently behind the scenes. She’s helped design the interior of university buildings and create the campus gardens and arboretum that bear her name.

In her own quiet way, though, her altruism stretches far beyond HPU’s 500-acre campus. Those efforts mirror how she raised four children, with love, an attention to detail and a sense of grace. She shares those same values with her grandchildren.

She has served on numerous boards, including the N.C. School of the Arts and Family Services of the Piedmont. She’s active in her church, a major participant in the United Way of Greater High Point and her family has endowed one of the largest stewardship funds at the High Point Community Foundation.

She sees her work as nurturing a community for generations to come. She knows why: her faith.

“It’s like a light,” she says. “It guides you through your life.”

J U L Y

Professional_Women_July2021.indd 43

2 0 2 1

43

6/18/21 3:18 PM

ALISA MOODY CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CPA

MAKING COMPANY HISTORY Alisa Moody is in a unique position as the CEO of Bernard Robinson & Co., LLP, not only because she’s serving as the firm’s first CEO, but because of her long-term experience with the firm. Moody has been with BRC since graduating from UNC Chapel Hill with her master’s degree in 1991 and joining as a staff accountant.

Moody is particularly proud of the many varied roles she has assumed over the years. She was only the second female partner in the firm 20 years ago and has helped pave the way for many to follow.

Now, 11 of the firm’s 23 partners are female as well as 100% of the firm’s executive committee and 59% of senior leadership.

“It’s really quite wonderful,” Moody says. “It’s all about creating that flexible environment where we not only feel valued for our individual contributions but also where we are able to see the value in being part of something bigger than ourselves.”

Moody’s vision for the firm remains true to its long history. She is committed to its people first, community-minded culture. “I believe strongly in supporting our people. It’s our people who support the success of our clients and our firm,” says Moody. “My number one priority is to give our people what they need to succeed both in their careers and in their personal lives.”

amoody@brccpa.com Greensboro, N.C. brccpa.com

Outside of work, Moody loves to spend time with her family, including her three teenage daughters.

They’ve been active in Girl Scouts for over a decade, allowing her family to spend time together and volunteer with area nonprofits and schools.

“We always encouraged staff to be active,” Moody says. “Any activity you have in your community not only brings value to the group and to yourself but also creates the people connections that fuel our lives.”

Moody is a Triad-area native and has settled in Kernersville. She primarily works out of the firm’s Greensboro office. It’s a community where everyone knows each other and feels like family, she says. Between that and the people she’s known at her firm for longer than she’s known her husband, Moody has never felt the desire to move companies or towns.

“I think what keeps everyone where they are is the people you work with,” she says. “We’ve always had the best people in our firm, and I think it makes a tremendous amount of difference.”

44

B U S I N E S S

Professional_Women_July2021.indd 44

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

Photo credit (both pages): Amy Freeman

336-294-4494

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:19 PM

CECELIA ANDERSON VICE PRESIDENT - INVESTMENTS

PASSION FOR PLANNING Cecelia Anderson will tell you juggling responsibilities comes naturally to her. This helps in her role as vice president-investments at Davenport & Company LLC. Anderson was among the founders of Davenport’s Greensboro branch in 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis. This was no easy feat.

“Given the state of the economy at the time, it wasn’t the best time to transition to a new firm,” Anderson says. “However, we knew Davenport was a better fit for our team and, more importantly, our clients.”

Davenport, a Richmond, Virginia based wealth management and financial services firm, was founded in 1863 and has offices throughout the mid-Atlantic. Greensboro is the firm’s fourth office in North Carolina.

After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2001, Anderson, a natural planner, considered a career in event management. Instead, as an economics major, she turned her sights to the financial services industry, starting in administrative and sales assistant roles before working her way up to financial advising and a position in management. She credits this start in the industry with her ultimate success.

336-297-2801 canderson@investdavenport.com Davenport & Company LLC Member: NYSE | FINRA | SIPC Greensboro, N.C. investdavenport.com

“I quickly realized it is not just about the financial aspects of the business, but rather the relationships you build and sustain with your clients,” she says. “My clients may not remember each and every financial decision I help them with every year, but they’ll remember the little things, like a call to wish them happy anniversary or reaching out just to say hello.”

Anderson has been instrumental in Davenport’s outreach efforts in the Greensboro community through its involvement in Backpack Beginnings, a local nonprofit that accepts donations for children in need of nutritional food over the weekends and school breaks. Her clients have enjoyed getting involved in the organization now too.

Involved in her community, Anderson co-chaired the Greensboro Children’s Museum annual gala in 2018 and 2019, the museum’s largest annual fundraiser. She serves on the Board of Directors as first vice president of the Women’s Professional Forum, an invitation-only organization for professional women.

The group and its nonprofit, the WPF Foundation, focus on supporting young girls and women in their professional and leadership goals.

“That’s really important to me, especially as a woman in a male-dominated industry,” Anderson says. “I’m all for anything that supports women furthering their growth in these types of leadership roles.”

J U L Y

Professional_Women_July2021.indd 45

2 0 2 1

45

6/18/21 3:27 PM

STEPHANIE BRYANT SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT PRIVATE BANKING OFFICER

A CULTURE OF CARING For Stephanie Bryant, working as the senior vice president and private banker at TowneBank means going beyond providing a loan for customers. It means nurturing relationships and contributing to a culture of caring. In fact, Bryant considers many members of the bank her friends.

She wants all members to have a personalized experience where they don’t need to wait in a voicemail tree to get an answer to a question. Her goal is to serve others, enrich lives and tell the TowneBank story.

“I serve as the quarterback of the relationship,” Bryant says. “I have folks that assist me, but my goal is to make sure my members are happy and taken care of in whatever they need.”

TowneBank was founded in 1999 with three banking offices, but has since expanded with offices across North Carolina and Virginia. The bank focuses on commercial, private and personal banking and also has mortgage and insurance companies to offer a comprehensive set of services to its members. It’s a nationally ranked bank, landing 16th on Forbes’ America’s Best Banks 2021 listing.

Bryant, a Charlotte native, joined the bank 9 years ago as the vice president before getting promoted to her current role approximately a year later.

Having lived in the Charlotte area for her life, Bryant enjoys traveling with her husband in her spare time and spending time with her 20-year-old son who attends Appalachian State University. stephanie.bryant@townebank.net Charlotte, N.C. townebank.com

She currently serves on the finance committee for Parkinson Association of the Carolinas and previously served on the board for five years. The nonprofit raises money to support those living with Parkinson’s as well as their caretakers. She’s also the treasurer of the Executives Association of Charlotte, a group of 50 business owners who network together and support each other’s businesses, and has served as the head of the United Way Pacesetter Campaign for the Charlotte region for TowneBank for the last three years.

Bryant’s favorite part about working for TowneBank is the professional but warm environment. She says that even though everyone works hard and has an impeccable attention to detail, they also know how to have fun.

“The culture of the bank is very caring,” she says. “Everyone really tries to help everyone; everyone tries to do the best job for our members. It’s a great, fun atmosphere to work in that comes from the top down.”

46

B U S I N E S S

Professional_Women_July2021.indd 46

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

Photo credit: Justin Driscoll

704-644-4023

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:20 PM

ANNA LEA MOORE VICE PRESIDENT, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

LAYING GOOD DIRT When Anna Lea Moore joined the North Carolina Railroad Company as the vice president of economic development six years ago, she had a long history in economic development, but she didn’t know anything about railroads.

That has since changed. Now, she speaks of railway infrastructure and the essential role it plays in job creation so passionately it could interest just about anyone.

The NCRR is a private company responsible for the 317-mile rail corridor that runs from Charlotte to the Port terminal in Morehead City. Their goal of job creation through rail investments across the state remains the same more than 170 years later.

Not long after joining NCRR, Moore launched NCRR Invests, which addresses rail infrastructure needs of companies looking to locate or expand in North Carolina. Through NCRR Invests, NCRR was part of recently announced projects like Nestle Purina and EGGER Wood Products among several others, all resulting in 2,700 jobs and capital investments by the companies totaling more than $2 billion.

“If the state is recruiting a new company and it uses rail, we don’t ever want the rail part of it to become a dealbreaker,” Moore says.

919-954-7601 annamoore@ncrr.com Raleigh, N.C. ncrr.com

Her team’s latest initiative, Build-Ready Sites, speaks directly to this. Essentially, Moore’s team will accept applications from sites with active rail across the state to apply for up to $500,000 for land preparation, speculative building construction and water and sewer updates.

These sites can become a selling point for companies looking to relocate or build operations in North Carolina. If a potential site isn’t ready for development or doesn’t have the proper research completed so questions can be answered, companies might look elsewhere.

“You have to lay a foundation to grow,” Moore says. “You’ve got to have good dirt. Yes, you need to water it and till it, and the quality of whatever seeds you put in the ground is important, but without good dirt, without a good foundation, it’s next to impossible to yield a crop.”

Moore is as passionate about North Carolina as she is her work. She’s a Rocky Mount native who lives in downtown Raleigh now and enjoys the city, which she describes as an eclectic mix of old and new.

“The spirit of the people of North Carolina is something that will never stop amazing me, and I’m hoping we can continue to be a catalyst for forward movement,” she says.

J U L Y

Professional_Women_July2021.indd 47

2 0 2 1

47

6/18/21 3:20 PM

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

By Lawrence Bivins Pandemic aside, North Carolina had a remarkably successful year in economic development.

Asheville and Charlotte recorded unprecedented corporate expansions by Pratt & Whitney and Centene, respectively, while Apple’s $1 billion plan for Wake and Catawba counties grabbed international attention.

Officials from arriving and expanding firms routinely cited the state’s talent, market access and supportive leadership when asked what led them here.

California companies accounted for 10 of the state’s major projects last year, led mainly by life-sciences projects heading for the Raleigh-Durham area. Businesses from New York and New England also launched and expanded big operations. Foreign investment is coming to the state from major companies based in Canada, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom. One key caveat: Projections for new jobs often fall short because of changing economic conditions and revised corporate strategies.

Ranked by job creation, here are the top 26 economic-development projects announced in North Carolina from June 2020 through the end of May 2021. (See separate story on Amazon on Page 54.)

48

B U S I N E S S

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 48

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:47 AM

1. CENTENE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

St. Louis

NEW JOBS: 3,237 COUNTY: Mecklenburg PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $1 billion N.C. INCENTIVES: $388 million over 39 years

Health insurer Centene’s plans for a 3,200-person workforce on a potential $1 billion campus marked the largest job-generating project in the 18-year history of the state’s Jobs Development and Investment Grant program. It was the first company to qualify for provisions adopted by the N.C. General Assembly in 2017 that allow for “transformative” JDIG awards that extend for 39 years. Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are offering an additional $58 million in incentives.

Centene specializes in offering health insurance for low-income Americans enrolled in the federal Medicaid program. CEO Michael Neidorff has led the company since 1996, building it into the 42nd-largest U.S. public company with 23 million customers. It paid $10 million for an 81-acre property near UNC Charlotte.

St. Louis-based Rafco Properties is managing the development, Charlottebased LandDesign is the site planner, and Charleston, S.C.-based LS3P is the architect.

3. GOOGLE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Mountain View, Calif.

NEW JOBS: 1,000 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: N/A N.C. INCENTIVES: N/A

As part of a $7 billion nationwide expansion this year, Google officials announced a 1,000-job cloud-engineering hub in Durham, including as many as 500 by the end of 2023. It will be one of five Google Cloud engineering centers across the country as the search-engine giant competes with Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing. Google didn’t seek incentives for the project and hadn’t disclosed its site location as of mid-June. In the meantime, it is leasing downtown Durham space. The search-engine giant has operated a data center in Caldwell County since 2007.

2. APPLE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Cupertino, Calif.

NEW JOBS: 3,000 COUNTIES: Wake/Catawba PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $1 billion N.C. INCENTIVES: $846 million over 39 years

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

BIOAGILYTIX LABS Durham NEW JOBS: 878 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $61.5 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $18.9 million over 12 years

Contract-research organization BioAgilytix, which opened in Durham in 2008, specializes in large molecule bioanalysis and provides a wide portfolio of services supporting the development and testing of biologic drugs, which are produced by or contain living organisms. Salaries are expected to average nearly $96,500. BioAgilytix also operates labs in Boston and Hamburg, Germany, but the company said the Triangle’s abundant supply of experienced biotech workers and livability made it a logical expansion choice. BioAgilytix is owned by Cobepa, a Belgium-based private-equity group.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF APPLE, GOOGLE, BIOAGILYTIX LABS

Many had assumed Apple’s selection of Austin, Texas, for a $1 billion campus in December 2018 meant the tech titan had ruled out a major campus in North Carolina. State officials steadfastly refused to concede they had closed the file on “Project Bear.” In April, Apple said it will invest $550 million in a Wake County campus plus about $450 million to expand its Catawba County data center, which opened in 2009. The Wake site near Cary and Morrisville is expected to eventually employ 3,000 in research, operations and engineering jobs with an average annual salary of about $187,000, according to the company. Apple already employs 1,100 in the state, including 200 at the Catawba center in Maiden.

Apple has said little about its Wake County site development plans. Acute Investments, a company with links to Apple, acquired 281 acres near the intersection of Interstate 540 and Davis Drive in 2018 for $50 million.

4.

J U L Y

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 49

2 0 2 1

49

6/21/21 8:47 AM

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

6.

PRATT & WHITNEY East Hartford, Conn.

NEW JOBS: 800 COUNTY: Buncombe PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $650 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $15.5 million over 12 years

The pandemic wreaked havoc on commercial aviation and aerospace manufacturing, prompting massive federal responses to prop up the industry. But Pratt & Whitney’s plans for a $650 million aircraft engine-manufacturing site in Asheville proved the state’s economic resilience. The plant, near Interstate 26 and the Blue Ridge Parkway, is on land owned by the Cecil family’s Biltmore Farms, marking the biggest project in Buncombe County history. Detroit-based Walbridge Southeast is the general contractor for the 1.3 million-square-foot complex, and Highlands Ranch, Colo.-based Arcadis is the architect. Raytheon Technologies bought Pratt & Whitney owner United Technologies for $30 billion in 2020.

(TIE) FUJIFILM DIOSYNTH BIOTECHNOLOGIES ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Boston

NEW JOBS: 750 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: N/A N.C. INCENTIVES: N/A

Privately held Fidelity’s 2006 arrival at Research Triangle Park helped launch Raleigh and Durham as contenders for big financial-services campuses. The company has continued to grow to a local staff of more than 3,000 with two new waves of hiring announced this year. It is hiring 750 mobile app development, customer service and financial advisory positions in North Carolina, mainly at the Durham site.

Activity on the company’s mobile and web-based platforms spiked by about 60% during the pandemic, helping Fidelity add 8.6 million customer accounts in the last 18 months.

50

B U S I N E S S

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 50

N O R T H

NEW JOBS: 750 COUNTY: Wake PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $2 billion N.C. INCENTIVES: $21.7 million over 12 years

The biotech company formed by Dutch and Japanese owners announced the state’s first $2 billion plant in midMarch. Fujifilm Diosynth had said it would locate in either College Station, Texas, or Wake County, where it employs 600 in Morrisville. With support from the N.C. Biotechnology Center and others, the company picked fast-growing Holly Springs for the site that will produce cell cultures. The southern Wake town is also home to a 500,000-square-foot biomanufacturing plant opened by Swiss multinational Novartis in 2009. (It’s now called Seqirus.)

8.

6. (TIE) FIDELITY INVESTMENTS

Tokyo

CREDIT KARMA San Francisco NEW JOBS: 600 COUNTY: Mecklenburg PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $13 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $20.3 million over 12 years

Credit Karma in May said it would expand its Charlotte operation over the next five years with salaries expected to average nearly $157,000 annually. Intuit, which owns TurboTax and QuickBooks, bought the consumer-finance and marketing company for $8.1 billion last year. Credit Karma has operated an office in the Ballantyne area since 2017. It plans to create a high-tech engineering center that will employ analysts, software engineers and managers.

9. UPS ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Atlanta NEW JOBS: 592 COUNTIES: Alamance/Guilford PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $316.4 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $10.2 million over 12 years

With shipping demand soaring in the pandemic, UPS announced major growth at its sorting facility in Greensboro and plans for a new distribution center in Alamance County. For the latter project, the transportation giant worked with Greensboro-based construction company Samet in acquiring 185 acres at the N.C. Commerce Park in Mebane, where its $262 million facility will employ 451 workers. Its Greensboro site will undergo technology upgrades and add 141 jobs. Annual salaries at the UPS sites will average more than $65,000.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PRATT & WHITNEY, UPS

5.

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:48 AM

10. (TIE) THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC 10. (TIE) INTERCONTINENTAL ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Waltham, Mass.

NEW JOBS: 500 COUNTY: Pitt PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $500 million N.C. INCENTIVES: N/A

Thermo Fisher Scientific is adding a 130,000-square-foot building in Greenville for the company’s sterile drug product development and commercial manufacturing lines. The diversified company already employs 1,500 workers in Pitt County.

Thermo Fisher is working with Pitt Community College, East Carolina University and other entities to help train workers for skills needed at the business.

CAPITAL GROUP ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Melville, N.Y. NEW JOBS: 500 COUNTY: Mecklenburg PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $5.8 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $7.7 million over 12 years

Charlotte’s hefty pool of financial-services talent was cited as a top factor for Intercontinental’s expansion in the Queen City. The privately held mortgage lender also considered Richmond, Va., and Indianapolis. The new jobs will average $87,500 annually. Prior to the expansion, ICG employed 179 in Charlotte.

13. (TIE) ROBINHOOD MARKETS ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

10. (TIE) WHITE RIVER MARINE GROUP

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC, ARRIVAL

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Springfield, Mo.

NEW JOBS: 500 COUNTY: Craven PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $34 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $5.4 million over 12 years

Recreational boating took off during the pandemic, with sales reaching a 13year high last year, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.

North Carolina’s strong boat-building industry is a key beneficiary. As part of its acquisition of 60-year-old Hatteras Yachts, White River is building a center for R&D and manufacturing as part of a plan to make New Bern the “new world capital for offshore angling and boating.” Hatteras had been controlled since 2013 by Versa Capital Management, a Philadelphia-based private-equity company. White Marine is owned by Springfield, Mo.-based Great American Outdoors Group, which operates about 200 outdoor recreational-equipment stores under the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s brands.

Menlo Park, Calif.

NEW JOBS: 400 COUNTY: Mecklenburg PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $11.7 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $3 million over 12 years

Founded in 2013, Robinhood pioneered mobile-based investment services with a stated goal of “democratizing finance.” The company’s trading platform caused a sensation earlier this year when users coordinated a “short squeeze” on GameStop shares, sparking massive losses for some hedge funds. About 150 local jobs are likely to be filled by the end of 2021, the company said. Charlotte competed with Denver; Fort Mill, S.C.; and Tempe, Ariz., for the project.

13. (TIE) ARRIVAL ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

London

NEW JOBS: 400 COUNTY: Mecklenburg PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $44.2 million N.C. INCENTIVES: N/A

British electric-vehicle maker Arrival picked Charlotte for its North American headquarters in December, then followed up in March with plans for a 250-employee factory in west Charlotte. The company, founded in 2015, has a contract to make zero-emission vehicles for UPS, with initial deliveries expected in late 2022. Arrival previously said it plans a factory in nearby Rock Hill, S.C., to make electric buses. The company’s overall area employment is expected to reach 650.

Russian billionaire Denis Sverdlov controls Arrival, which went public in March.

J U L Y

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 51

2 0 2 1

51

6/21/21 8:48 AM

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

15. GRAIL ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

17. ABZENA

Menlo Park, Calif.

NEW JOBS: 398 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $100 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $5.2 million over 12 years

Founded in 2015, cancer-detection biotech company Grail counts Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Johnson & Johnson among its investors. The company is developing a platform for early detection of more than 50 cancers using a single blood draw. Grail is leasing 200,000 square feet in Research Triangle Park. In 2016, the firm was spun out of San Diego-based Illumina, which last year said it wanted to buy the company back for $8 billion. The Federal Trade Commission is blocking the deal over antitrust concerns. General contractor Brasfield & Gorrie and architect Perkins+Will are working on the project.

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

San Diego

NEW JOBS: 325 COUNTY: Lee PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $213 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $6.9 million over 12 years

Abzena, which is working on an antibody-based treatment for COVID-19, collaborates with pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions around the world. A 117,000-squarefoot building at Central Carolina Enterprise Park will house Abzena’s work on antibody discovery and immunology assessment, marking the latest lifesciences expansions in Lee County. Audentes Therapeutics is occupying a nearby building in a $100 million initiative announced in February 2020. In 2019, Pfizer unveiled plans for a 300-worker expansion at its Sanford campus.

18. (TIE) NESTLÉ PURINA ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

16. INVITAE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

San Francisco NEW JOBS: 374 COUNTY: Wake PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $114.6 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $6.8 million over 12 years

St. Louis

NEW JOBS: 300 COUNTY: Rockingham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $450 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $4.3 million over 12 years

With brands like Purina One, Pro Plan and Tidy Cats, Purina has been a popular brand for generations. A 1,300-acre site that once housed a MillerCoors brewery is being redeveloped into a 1.3 million-square-foot pet-food manufacturing facility expected to be fully staffed by 2024. MillerCoors closed the plant in September 2016, eliminating 520 jobs. Greensboro-based D.H. Griffin bought the 39-year-old property in January 2019 for $2.76 million and sold it last year to Switzerland-based Nestlé, which has owned Purina since 2001.

18. (TIE) GRIFOLS THERAPEUTICS ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Barcelona, Spain

NEW JOBS: 300 COUNTY: Johnston PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $351.6 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $5.2 million over 12 years

Grifols, already Johnston County’s largest private employer with 1,600 staffers, is adding more positions at its manufacturing campus in Clayton. Salaries for the new jobs are expected to average $69,000. The closely held maker of plasmabased therapeutics opened the site near Clayton in 2011. It has plenty of room

52

B U S I N E S S

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 52

N O R T H

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GRAIL, NESTLÉ

The repurposing of a shuttered 250,000-square-foot retail property near Raleigh-Durham International Airport caught the eye of genetic-testing company Invitae. Formerly home to the once-bustling Prime Outlets Mall, the leased facility will span 245,159 square feet of office, research and lab space. Invitae went public in 2015 and had revenue of $280 million last year. New York City-based OCS Capital and Equator Capital Management bought the property in 2019 for $15.5 million.

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:48 AM

to accommodate more growth. In early 2019, the company bought 467 acres southeast of Clayton, several miles from the existing campus, Triangle Business Journal reported. Grifols had revenue of $5.3 billion in 2020.

18. (TIE) PENNYMAC FINANCIAL ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Westlake Village, Calif.

NEW JOBS: 300 COUNTY: Wake PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $4.3 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $1.9 million over 12 years

Mortgage lender PennyMac explored locations in Phoenix; Tampa, Fla.; and Plano, Texas, before selecting Cary for a 300-worker center that will include sales and technology functions, production, business technology and an IT support center.

The region’s diversity and talent attracted PennyMac, President Doug Jones said. PennyMac, founded in 2008, went public in 2013 and had revenue of $4 billion last year.

fully staffed by 2023. The new jobs have an annual salary averaging $142,000, the company said.

23. JELD-WEN HOLDINGS ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Charlotte

NEW JOBS: 235 COUNTY: Iredell PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $7.9 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $2.2 million over 12 years

The Charlotte-based door and window maker selected Statesville for a new facility that will produce VPI Quality Windows, which are customized for commercial and multiunit residential markets. Jeld-Wen’s new site will employ 235 in addition to the more than 500 employees the publicly held company has at a Wilkes County plant and its Charlotte headquarters. JeldWen reported $4.2 billion in net revenue for 2020.

18. (TIE) RETIREMENT CLEARINGHOUSE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Charlotte NEW JOBS: 300 COUNTY: Mecklenburg PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $4.1 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $3.3 million over 12 years

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JELD-WEN HOLDINGS

An estimated $92 billion leaves the U.S. retirement system annually as job-changing workers prematurely cash out 401(k) savings accounts, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Former Charlotte Bobcats owner Robert Johnson’s RLJ Cos. owns the business, which helps workers shift accounts from one employer to the next without incurring major penalties.

About 6 million Americans have used the company’s solutions to consolidate their retirement savings. Formed in 2001 as Rollover Systems, it rebranded in 2013.

22. GILEAD SCIENCES ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Foster City, Calif.

NEW JOBS: 275 COUNTY: Wake PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $5 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $10 million over 12 years

Gilead Sciences operates in 35 countries, developing medications for lifethreatening illnesses, focusing on virology, inflammation and oncology. The company’s COVID-19 treatment Remdesivir was developed by researchers at UNC Chapel Hill. Its latest venture in North Carolina is a business-services center that will provide financial, human resources and IT services to its 36,000 employees.

The hub is expected to operate from offices in Raleigh’s North Hills area and be

24. PRIME BEVERAGE GROUP ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Kannapolis

NEW JOBS: 231 COUNTY: Cabarrus PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $68 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $2.4 million over 12 years

Contract beverage manufacturer Prime Beverage Group will operate from a 300,000-square-foot facility in Kannapolis. The startup company’s operations will be capable of filling 1,500 cans per minute. Workers will earn an average annual salary of $66,000, the company said. Atlantabased Choate Construction was the general contractor for the building, which is owned by a company associated with NASCAR team owner Gene Haas.

J U L Y

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 53

2 0 2 1

53

6/21/21 8:49 AM

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Cambridge, Mass.

NEW JOBS: 201 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $83 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $3.2 million over 12 years

Beam, which develops precision genetic medicines through DNA editing, is working with Pasadena, Calif.-based Alexandria Real Estate Equities on a build-to-suit facility in Research Triangle Park. Plans call for 140,000 square feet of offices, labs and storage space.

Beam, which went public in February 2020 and has reported little revenue so far, also considered locations in Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

A

mazon.com isn’t listed in our list of top job-creating projects for a basic reason: The Seattle-based retail giant operates on a different frequency than the rest of corporate America.

Since 2010, Amazon has created more than 27,000 full- and parttime jobs in North Carolina while investing $2.1 billion in plants and equipment. The company doubled its global staff over the past two years to reach 1.3 million workers. Its total revenue is expected to top $490 billion this year then hit $1 trillion by 2027.

In May alone, Amazon said it would add a $100 million processing center in Smithfield in Johnston County with more than 500 jobs by 2024 and a smaller Fayetteville site that would total a couple of hundred jobs. The 620,000-square-foot Smithfield warehouse is expected to open next year, joining more than 25 other fulfillment sites, sorting centers, delivery stations and Whole Foods Market grocery stores in North Carolina. It also owns a wind farm in the state.

By last December, Amazon had opened more than 6 million square feet of distribution facilities in the state, ranking 16th nationally, according to Marc Wulfraat, a Montreal-based logistics expert who tracks the company. Its largest centers, each topping 1 million square feet, have opened since 2018 in Charlotte, Concord, Kernersville and Pineville. Its 640,000-square-foot center in Garner that opened last year employs 3,000.

“Amazon’s selection of Johnston County for this important new facility will bring accessible job opportunities, local tax base and economic diversification to Smithfield and beyond, and it marks a major win for our community,” Chad Stewart, chairman of the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, said when the Amazon expansion was announced. “We welcome the arrival of this game-changing company and are deeply grateful for the positive impact it will make here.”

54

B U S I N E S S

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 54

N O R T H

25. (TIE) PREPAC MANUFACTURING ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Vancouver, British Columbia

NEW JOBS: 201 COUNTY: Guilford PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $27.1 million N.C. INCENTIVES: $2.1 million over 12 years

Prepac, one of the largest North American makers of ready-toassemble furniture, is occupying a 260,000-square-foot facility at Rock Creek Center in Whitsett.

Pandemic-related demand for home-office furnishings is helping drive the company’s recent growth.

Its business model relies on “just in time” inventory management that cuts shipping time to two business days, making the Greensboro region well-positioned to serve eastern U.S. markets.

Prepac, founded in 1979, was acquired by Canadian private-equity firm TorQuest Partners in 2019.

Unlike many companies pledging new jobs in North Carolina, Amazon hasn’t sought state incentives to build its massive supply chain network.

That’s a big contrast from its much-publicized “second headquarters” competition in 2017 that pitted Charlotte, Raleigh and dozens of U.S. cities against each other for as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs and a $5 billion campus. North Carolina officials indicated at least preliminary interest in offering tax breaks to Amazon that would have exceeded $2 billion over 15 years, but the company eventually chose Arlington, Va. Earlier in its life cycle, Amazon relied on UPS, FedEx and the Postal Service, but it gradually built up its own sorting centers to speed the delivery to customers. Huge delays during the holiday season of 2013, which marked a surge in Amazon ordering, and ice storms in the Dallas area that winter that slowed transportation accelerated the company’s expansion plans.

Since then, the company has never looked back. ■

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PREPAC, AMAZON

25. (TIE) BEAM THERAPEUTICS

C A R O L I N A

6/21/21 8:49 AM

#5

Lowest effective tax rate for mature firms Tax Foundation, May 2021 report

source: Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina

2020

2019

2018

2017

Lowe’s

1,600

Amazon

3,000

Allstate Insurance

2,250

Alorica

1,400

Amazon

1,200

AvidXchange

1,229

Infosys

2,000

Credit Suisse

1,200

Bandwidth

1,165

Chewy

1,200

Triangle Tyre

1,000 Charter Communications

Microsoft

930

Publix Super Markets

Q2 Solutions

749

Honeywell International

750

Amazon

800

Corning

615

655

Everest Textile

610

600

Avadim Technologies

551

source: Business North Carolina

J U L Y

48-55_Economic-Dev_July 2021.indd 55

2 0 2 1

55

6/21/21 8:49 AM

Tesla-powered miner Piedmont Lithium wants to make Gaston County a rocksolid link in the auto supply chain.

hell Gas globes sit atop hand-cranked pumps in front of Beam’s Service Station in Cherryville. Now a museum, it’s a snapshot of the 1930s when, in a back room here, Grier Beam founded Carolina Freight Carriers with $500 and a used truck. It would grow into the nation’s fifth-largest trucking company before its sale in 1995.

Though he didn’t realize it, Beam was present at the dawning of the golden age of fossil fuels.

Now, east of Cherryville where Beaverdam Creek winds through fields and forests, drillers poke holes in the earth of northwest Gaston County.

With a low growl, their machines bring up 3-inch cores of gray, variegated rock. To Piedmont Lithium CEO Keith Phillips, whose company plans a $545 million regional investment, this is the future of transportation — cars, trucks, buses or otherwise. It’s not fossil fuel.

56

B U S I N E S S

56-61_Lithium_July 2021.indd 56

N O R T H

PHOTO COURTESY OF TESLA

B Y E D WA R D M A R T I N

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 3:36 PM

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PIEDMONT LITHIUM

▲ Lithium in Gaston County is contained in hardrock spodumene, which is mined and crushed and the lithium extracted and processed.

“Lithium is the dominant technology and will be for decades to come,” he says. “Our transportation industry, electronics — our whole economy — is electrifying, and it’s all going to be based on batteries.”

He’s more at home on Wall Street than in the brambles of the Tar Heel countryside 40 miles west of Charlotte, but investors are betting hundreds of millions that Phillips is correct. Before leading Piedmont Lithium, he spent three decades tending the global mining investments of Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and others.

Now, after nearly five years of assembling land — more than 2,300 acres — exploratory drilling and legal footwork, Piedmont Lithium is preparing to pump out copious amounts of lithium that could create a major new industry.

Production could begin as early as 2023. The initial plan is conservative — “the total could be in excess of $1 billion,” Phillips says. Piedmont Lithium could create as many as 300 jobs with its surface mines and nearby chemical processing plant, he adds.

Economic-development experts hope Gaston County’s lithium will become the nucleus of manufacturing industries

that create battery systems that power vehicles, smartphones and many other devices. Other uses include storing renewable energy, an essential step to break the dominance of fossil fuels.

Some N.C. Department of Commerce officials believe Piedmont Lithium’s progress could finally tip the state’s long quest for a major car manufacturing plant. The processing plant and proximity to Charlotte’s airport, rail and highway transportation systems could make it a favored location for automakers as electric vehicles gain market share.

J U L Y

56-61_Lithium_July 2021.indd 57

2 0 2 1

57

6/18/21 3:42 PM

This is the large mineral belt where the lithium industry had its birth from the 1950s on up through the 1990s. This is where virtually all of the world’s lithium came from.

– Keith Phillips, CEO, Piedmont Lithium

London-based Arrival in March said it will open a 250-employee factory in west Charlotte that will assemble as many as 10,000 zero-emissions vans annually for shipping giant UPS and other customers. It previously announced a similar venture in nearby Rock Hill, S.C., to make electric buses. BMW Group, which operates an 11,000-employee factory 70 miles south in Greer, S.C., says it expects half of its 10 million annual global deliveries by 2030 to involve electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, General Motors vows to abandon internal combustion vehicles altogether by 2035, and Ford is spending $22 billion converting to electric-vehicle production by 2025. It’s also considering making its own batteries, which could favor proximity to lithium sources.

“What makes our deposits here so special is, there’s just so incredibly much of it in the ground,” says Bart Cattanach, an N.C. Geological Survey geologist in Asheville. “It’s primarily hardrock spodumene (a lithium-rich ore), and these are some of the best reserves in the world.” Spodumene is abundant in a 40-mile geological belt from the South Carolina line near Kings Mountain north to Lincoln County.

Piedmont Lithium, despite never having produced the powerful but lightweight battery material, has captured the ardor of investors. Australian investor Taso Arima and N.C. native Lamont Leatherman raised several million dollars to recapitalize a shell company in 2017. Shares of the business initially traded for about $15 in mid-2018, then soared to more than $70 earlier this year. In early June shares sold for about $73 for a market value of $1.1 billion.

The company received a quantum boost in late 2020, when Tesla, the globe’s highest-profile manufacturer of

58

B U S I N E S S

56-61_Lithium_July 2021.indd 58

N O R T H

electric cars, announced it would be Piedmont’s first customer. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company committed to buy a third of Piedmont’s initial 180,000-ton annual output of lithium hydroxide at about $13,000 a ton for five years, starting probably in late 2022. The deal is potentially worth more than $300 million.

Lithium hydroxide is rapidly replacing lithium carbonate used in earlier automotive batteries because of its greater energy density and mileage range. It’s the choice of Tesla, which produces more than half of the electric vehicles made in the U.S. — nearly 300,000 in 2020. Tesla officials declined to comment.

“That removes a lot of uncertainty,” says Steve Byrne, a Bank of America equity analyst who follows the global chemical industry. He tracks Charlotte-based Albemarle Corp. and Philadelphia-based Livent, both well-established lithium industry powers. “Most new entries in lithium have a hard time getting contracts, and most end up with shortterm contracts.”

The seemingly placid Gaston County countryside is a potential battleground in a global power play. The U.S., once the world’s undisputed automobile titan, is wrestling with China for leadership in electric cars. The Asian superpower is in front, controlling extraction for many key minerals and processing two-thirds of the world’s lithium. Anxious to avoid excessive reliance on other nations, President Joe Biden issued an executive order in February to review the supply chain for critical raw materials.

Piedmont Lithium faces the usual hurdles of a startup and the vagaries of fickle financial markets. Its key competitors include Albemarle, a 5,400-employee

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 3:43 PM

Rich resource Lincolnton Tin-Spodumene Belt

Piedmont Lithium Project

Cherryville

Dallas Bessemer City Gastonia

specialty-chemical giant that also owns lots of lithiumrich land in Gaston County and has its worldwide technical center in Kings Mountain in adjacent Cleveland County. Both Albemarle and Livent process lithium in Gaston County, but they do not currently mine there.

Albemarle produces a third of the world’s lithium — it had 2020 sales of $1.4 billion — mostly in South America and Australia. In the 1950s, Foote Mineral opened a mine and production site of more than 800 acres near Kings Mountain, operating until shifting markets and weak prices prompted it to turn overseas.

(Foote morphed into Albemarle in the 1980s.)

The company’s mine “has been idle since the 1980s, but it’s in the same spodumene seam Piedmont Lithium is exploring,” says Eric Norris, Albemarle’s lithium president. “It’s still probably the highest-quality, lowest-cost lithium resource in North America.”

That’s a potential competitive cloud dangling over Piedmont’s drillers near Beaverdam Creek. “We’ve spent about $30 million in the last several years evaluating restarting it,” Norris says. “We have a plan to do that, but two conditions have to be right.” One is streamlining federal mining regulations, and the other is increased domestic demand. Both seem imminent.

History may be on Piedmont Lithium’s side.

Growing up in Lincoln County, Piedmont Lithium’s chief geologist and co-founder, Lamont Leatherman, 55, remembers the odd, greenish stone a neighbor used to gravel his driveway. It was spodumene aggregate,

the crushed byproduct of nearby lithium mines. A 1983 graduate of Lincolnton High School, he took little notice, but after a trip to Yellowstone National Park, his interest in geology grew. He earned a degree in the subject at Appalachian State University in 1988.

For several decades, Leatherman plied geology in Canada and elsewhere, including stints north of the Arctic Circle, chasing gold, oil and other materials. He lives on Vancouver Island, Canada, and when markets for those commodities turned soft, he recalled the oddcolored rocks in his native Lincoln County.

“I came down in 2009, started poking around and taking some samples, and was able to get some funding,” he says.

Despite the early promise, however, the mercurial lithium market followed gold and oil prices into the doldrums.

Leatherman turned to raising blueberries in Canada.

“The downturn lasted until about 2016, when things picked up again,” he says. That’s when he contacted a potential investor, Taso Arima, who’d moved to the U.S. to possibly develop coal mines. The Aussie soured on prospects for fossil fuels, just as Tesla and other electricvehicle makers kicked into high gear. “We met, drove around [for] a day or two in Gaston County, and decided to get the funding started.”

In 2017, Phillips signed on as CEO, giving Piedmont Lithium a prestigious link to Wall Street bankrolls. In March, Piedmont poached David Klanecky, formerly Albemarle’s lithium vice president, to become the company’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

As a geologist, Leatherman knew the Carolina Tin-

Electric vehicles’

GLOBAL GAINS

EV production (million)

16.1%

EV penetration of global vehicle sales (%)

4.6%

0.7% 0.6

3.4

15.3

2015

2020

2025

source: IHS Markit, January 2021

J U L Y

56-61_Lithium_July 2021.indd 59

2 0 2 1

59

6/18/21 3:43 PM

Spodumene Belt contained the world’s richest cache of lithium. He also knew the region’s long lithium legacy.

As early as the late 1940s, open pit mines in Gaston County produced lithium in vast quantities for nuclear weapons and other uses. It also was used in anti-anxiety drugs and lubricants and for ceramics such as stove cooktops. Underscoring its versatility, about 40% of Albemarle’s lithium now goes into non-battery uses, such as automobile grease, Norris says.

Piedmont isn’t intimidated. “We think this project, as important as it is in its own right, will be the foundation for something much, much bigger for North Carolina,” Phillips says. “This is the large mineral belt where the lithium industry had its birth from the 1950s on up through the 1990s. This is where virtually all of the world’s lithium came from.”

Lithium eventually declined in popularity, falling victim to economic trends and shifting technology.

The region was left with gaping surface pits near Kings Mountain and Bessemer City.

Cattanach, the state geologist, says lithium in Gaston is contained in hardrock spodumene, which is mined, crushed and the lithium extracted and processed. It’s high-quality but expensive compared with the other source, lithium brine, pumped from deep in the earth and evaporated to access the lithium. The Foote Mineral mine in Kings Mountain shut down, for example, when the company was acquired by Albemarle and shifted production to Chilean brine.

Those same economics, plus world affairs, are now shifting attention back to Gaston County. The world produced about 300,000 tons of lithium last year, a third generated by Albemarle, says Bank of America analyst Bryne. Buoyed by demand for electric vehicles and other uses such as phones and battery-powered lawnmowers, that will soar to 1 million tons a year by 2025.

“That puts the value proposition in a different perspective from the 1950s,” Byrne says. “Historically, most of the supply was either from Argentina, Chile or Australia.” Much of the Australia hardrock output was partially refined but shipped to China as ore for further conversion to lithium hydroxide. “What Piedmont is doing is revisiting whether the ore deposits west of Charlotte are sufficient to be extracted and converted all the way to hydroxide, as opposed to what the Australians do.”

Norris says Albemarle operates on five continents including Australia and China, “but the precious stuff, the starting point, the lithium itself, none of that actually comes from China.” His company operates the sole source of lithium in the U.S., brine production in Silver Peak, Nev. It is expanding that operation with research assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy.

60

B U S I N E S S

56-61_Lithium_July 2021.indd 60

N O R T H

Other factors are thrusting Gaston County into the global lithium spotlight. About 100 miles west, on a wooded lot next to a substation in the small community of Shiloh in south Asheville, kids can be heard playing a few blocks away. Here, a dozen white, metal boxes the size of small SUVs sit silently behind a low chain-link fence.

This is North Carolina’s largest utility battery storage system, a 9-megawatt, $15 million Samsung installation owned by Charlotte-based Duke Energy. Another 40 miles to the north, high in the Great Smoky Mountains, Duke has a 4-megawatt system to guard against outages in remote Hot Springs.

“Lithium batteries are the go-to technology right now,” says Randy Wheeless, Duke Energy’s communications manager. “Other chemistries are talked about, but if you‘re going to build large battery storage in the country today, it’s probably going to be lithium.”

Lithium battery storage is also becoming critical to renewable-energy systems such as wind and solar to store energy for when there’s no sun or wind. The systems can be used to help meet demand spikes, preventing the need for more expensive gas-turbine peak-load plants.

Analysts and market watchers say there could be sufficient demand for existing and emerging lithium companies such as Piedmont Lithium, Albemarle and Livent. Among President Biden’s first acts was reinserting the U.S. in the Paris Agreement on climate change and proposing a $2.7 trillion clean-energy and jobs plan. In May, the International Energy Agency issued a report concluding that estimates such as Byrne’s — that today’s 300,000-annual demand will more than triple by 2025 — might be conservative. The agency predicts a sixfold increase in world mineral needs by 2040.

“Everything in the political environment is in our favor now, including a lot of bipartisan support for green energy,” Phillips says. It helps that there’s growing uneasiness about the nation’s critical auto, electronics and utility industries becoming hostage to a potentially hostile foreign supplier, China. The Asian nation is investing heavily in electric vehicles, hoping to compete effectively with Ford, GM, Tesla and other global automakers.

Like steps for a giant, the sides of the former Foote mine rise out of the earth. Looming behind is Kings Mountain, which is the pinnacle of the towering monadnock, a geological term for an isolated hill of bedrock that survived centuries of erosion. As drivers pass by on Interstate 85, few realize the once abundant, now abandoned lithium mine was there.

Lithium mining uses classic strip-mining techniques, says Cattanach, the state geologist. “You strip off the overbur-

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 3:45 PM

Fast facts China processes

2/3

of the world’s lithium.

Australia, Chile, China and Argentina are the world’s largest lithium producers.

Piedmont Lithium wants to produce nearly

23,000 tons

U.S. production totaled

3,150 tons in 2020.

of refined lithium annually in North Carolina.

Albemarle Corp. is spending $30 million to study lithium mining in the Kings Mountain area and $30 million to $50 million in Nevada.

Lithium mining is also underway or being studied in Arkansas, California and Nevada.

50%

Electric vehicles will make up of world auto and truck production in 2030, UBS Global Research predicts.

It’s now less than 5%. source: The Wall Street Journal

den, soil or whatever to lay open the mine, blast, move ore with heavy equipment, then crush and separate the spodumene to get the raw lithium.”

Piedmont says byproducts such as the spodumene gravel Leatherman saw as a kid paving driveways, along with quartz and other minerals, will be sold, augmenting income.

Similar strip mining for coal and other minerals has long raised environmentalists’ ire, but Piedmont Lithium’s plans have attracted little opposition in a county hungry for jobs and economic development.

More than a year ago, the project received key permits from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Other threats might be more subtle.

Some question if other energy sources might supplant lithium as quickly as it’s rooting out its fossil predecessors.

Several industry officials say that is unlikely considering the nearly universal swing to battery-powered vehicles.

“Hydrogen fuel cells have some advantages in large vehicles like trucks, trains and buses,” Byrne says. “But that’s probably low risk. Battery electric vehicles are so far down the path to being commercial, lithium’s prospects are not likely to be disputed. That’s why we’re looking at double-digit growth for the next decade.”

Long-established Albemarle and its lithium head, Norris, are only slightly more subdued. Cheaper, overseas brine forced the company’s Gaston mine to shut down three decades ago, Norris says. Lithium prices, though rapidly rising, are still marginal. Local lithium

enthusiasts might be overselling the desire of upstream companies to be near their raw material, considering lithium’s light weight. Transportation is a relatively small part of the finished products’ cost.

“We have probably the highest-quality, lowest-cost resource in North America, but you have to have customers for it,” Norris says. Major carmakers often have long, binding contracts with Asian battery makers such as South Korea’s LG and Japan’s Panasonic, obtaining lithium processed by low-cost Chinese sources. “If I could snap my fingers and have Kings Mountain in production tomorrow, we’d still be shipping 100% of our production to Asia because there’s just not the demand in the U.S. for it right now.”

That’s changing. So is Gaston County, though Piedmont Lithium production is still likely two years off.

Summer shade begins to close in on tree-lined Glynlaurel Lane this time of year. Trucking company owner Lewis Guignard sold his land here to Piedmont Lithium and now lives in Wilkes County, 80 miles to the north.

“I’m a little farther out of town this time,” he says.

“The land I owned had been mined back in the 1980s, but they found a better seam over near Kings Mountain. I’m glad they’re doing it, and it’ll make some people better off. But for me, it was like hitting the lottery without buying a ticket.”

That’s the same, Wall Street and investors apparently believe, for Gaston County’s and the state’s ambition to become the nation’s lithium capital. ■

J U L Y

56-61_Lithium_July 2021.indd 61

2 0 2 1

61

6/18/21 3:46 PM

A self-taught Triad DIYer turns a home-renovation hobby into media acclaim.

By C y nthia Ad ams P hoto by Amy Freeman

N

ine years ago, Ursula Carmona typed out her manifesto: “I’m a DIY junkie,” she confessed.

And with “expensive taste but no decor budget,” she realized this was her best option.

Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that her simple mission — to create fresh, innovative interiors on the cheap and inspire others in the process — would render her a nationally recognized design influencer.

Carmona, described as a “DIY sensation” and a superstar in the home-decor blogging world, now has nearly 52,000 followers on Instagram and is regularly featured in national magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens, Elle Décor, Country Living and Good Housekeeping and on TV shows including Hallmark’s Home & Family. She’s rubbed elbows with HGTV stars such as Chip and Joanna Gaines and Matt Muenster and has won numerous style awards for her creative and unique home decor.

62

B U S I N E S S

62-65_Ursula-Carmona_July 2021 copy.indd 62

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 3:49 PM

J U L Y

62-65_Ursula-Carmona_July 2021 copy.indd 63

2 0 2 1

63

6/18/21 3:49 PM

A resident of Ruffin, an unincorporated town in rural Rockingham County north of Greensboro, Carmona didn’t always know how to use power tools to tear out walls and gut rooms. A decade ago, she worked as a massage therapist.

After briefly considering nursing school, she concluded that health care or alternative medicine wouldn’t spark her joy.

Then living in Cleveland, she became a stay-at-home parent to daughters Fiora, Priya and Sayuri.

“My husband [Orlando] worked two jobs. We slept on an old mattress with a spring that used to poke me in the ribs at night.” They saved money and stuck to a budget.

But living in Ohio in a confining bubble of children, meals and chores, the California native morphed into a dauntless “DIY junkie,” she says.

Carmona was bitten by the home-renovation bug when she found an old skill saw at a yard sale. Before long, she was teaching herself how to use all kinds of power tools. Mastering tools emboldened her to tackle projects like moving walls, creating her own built-ins, and undertaking entire bath and kitchen redos.

64

B U S I N E S S

62-65_Ursula-Carmona_July 2021 copy.indd 64

N O R T H

She also learned the basics of home renovation by watching DIY videos and reading how-to books on electrical wiring, plumbing and carpentry. Calling it “solo remodeling,” she tracked her progress through her first blog, Home Made

by Carmona. That digital effort also required figuring out how to code, optimize search engine results, light and style a photo, and post content.

The blog was for her own satisfaction initially, something to work on in her precious downtime. Just a little project and if nobody read it, she consoled herself, “it’s a way to reach out to a creative community.”

Life as a stay-at-home mom provided endless content.

From her kitchen table, she started sharing meal planning and organizational tips, then eventually, projects that became more ambitious. Within two years, she had amassed thousands of subscribers and expanded into the Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram platforms.

“All of a sudden, you discover how to write [copy] that is search engine optimized (SEO) friendly. I didn’t know anything about code — or making it HTML friendly. Online

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF URSULA CARMONA

▲ Ursula Carmona learned her craft through YouTube videos and how-to books. She recently started to wield a blowtorch for metalworking.

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 3:50 PM

articles have to be written in such a way that we use all the tricks to allow Google to make it higher on the search. You aren’t just a photographer. Or writer. Or script writer. Or website coder.

You’re all those things,” she says. “I believe people think I’ll show my project on Instagram, and that’s it. It’s not.”

She considered blogging a viable profession when Good Housekeeping magazine wanted to feature her DIY skills six months into blogging.

“At that time, my photography skills weren’t that great, and I didn’t have a [significant] following. Good Housekeeping led to companies who were interested in taking a chance on me as a micro influencer.”

Carmona was invited to appear on HGTV’s popular homeimprovement programs, which led to eager sponsors such as Home Depot, whose products aided her renovations. She was invited to travel with HGTV Expos, presenting alongside celebs like Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines. Only a few years after launching a blog, Carmona’s inspiring “chic on the cheap” projects landed in many other coveted print and digital publications. She became a DIY finalist featured on Hallmark channel’s Home & Family competition.

As Carmona’s media reach grew so did offers of sponsorships. “In the past five years, sponsored content is the bigger slice of the pie,” she explains. “If I didn’t have any sponsors, I could still make a living, making money off affiliate marketing and advertising.” She won’t disclose her personal finances, though her income is more than the annual earnings of $10,000 or less for typical DIY bloggers.

The ultimate fixer-upper Carmona and her family settled in North Carolina in 2016 after moving from Ohio. After searching for a private and verdant property near her husband’s engineering job in the Triad, a two-story, vacant house in tiny Ruffin popped up. Set on 16 acres of woodlands, it even had a creek.

“Space and opportunity!” Carmona says. She was lovestruck, but her husband was dismayed. “[Orlando] said, ‘Oh, this is terrible!’” she says. “But I knew I was home.”

Dated 1975 interiors were transformed once Carmona got her tools buzzing. “The joy comes from making the space your own.”

Carmona’s recent garage renovation was sponsored by Home Depot, “who gave me license to imagine the space as I thought it could be. They provided both payment for the work, as well as producing the tools and materials I required” for Carmona to take photos and videos for use on social media.

In January, Better Homes and Gardens featured the Carmonas and their Ruffin home with a team of stylists and photographers capturing the kitchen, living room and other interior spaces.

tor for Disney who helped create iconic images for Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and other films.

As a child, Carmona often accompanied her father at work and played on film sets. “I grew up a Disney kid. ...

The philosophy that you can create anything.”

Carmona interned at the studio while she was homeschooled, rotating through the various departments and absorbing the creative energy. “My folks sought to be expansive,” she adds. They always encouraged their children to “explore whatever we wanted to do.”

Carmona’s daughters have their own creative ambitions.

Fiona, 16, who dreams of culinary school, works on a blog, Cooking With Carmona. Priya, 15, aspiring to be a textile designer, has printed her own designs onto fabric. The youngest, Sayuri, is still deciding on her future.

Last year, Carmona braved COVID-19 to fly to California for a partnership project with Home Depot. The initiative was especially close to her heart: She was to tweak her parents’ home in Tehachapi, Calif., as part of the One Room Challenge interior design event.

“I wanted a space to showcase [my dad’s] artwork. I will say, despite the job he’s had and the lifestyle he’s chosen, he’s the most down-to-earth person.”

Carmona pauses. “Maybe a little too humble. He rubs shoulders with these incredible people and doesn’t say a word.”

Ordinary into extraordinary The physical work of rehabbing and the creative work of designing, writing, videotaping, photographing, editing and posting remain solo labors.

Repurpose things, she stresses.

“We have dragged ‘found’ things home and repurposed them.

You can make beautiful things with effort and creativity.”

Her daughters helped retrieve cabinets from a roadside and lug them home. The upcycled cabinets, painted and sporting new hardware, appeared in a feature this year.

“I don’t want people [to view us] as design bloggers who didn’t have to reach to get here. And I don’t want them to waste money.”

Carmona compares herself to “a lot of men out there in the DIY space and projects” in what she terms “the maker’s space.”

“But a lot of the bloggers I follow, doing the DIY work I’ve been doing — metal working, building — are predominantly a male group doing what I do. The spin I’ve taken is to show the ladies you don’t have to have a man in the household who can do those things. Go learn how to use power tools.” ■

Creative gene While Carmona marvels that all of this has happened, her childhood suggests the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Her father, Donald Towns, is a former art director and illustra-

J U L Y

62-65_Ursula-Carmona_July 2021 copy.indd 65

2 0 2 1

65

6/18/21 3:50 PM

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

66

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 66

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:56 PM

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA 68

PROMISING PARTNERSHIPS East Carolina University’s student entrepreneurship program empowers students and businesses.

70

THE CAROLINA CYBER NETWORK Fayetteville Technical Community College and partners create a holististic cybersecurity workforce initiative.

72

FORETHOUGHT RTI International launches a more than $5 million research collaboration challenge.

74

TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION The Small Business and Technology Development Center is demystifying the divide between academia and small business.

76

PARTNERSHIPS FOR A HEALTHY NORTH CAROLINA AND HEALTHY WORLD Partnerships have helped UNC Chapel Hill play a leading role combatting the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year and a half.

78

ADVANCEMENTS IN NUTRITION The UNC Nutrition Research Institute uses scientific discoveries to improve health through individualized nutrition.

80

A “BEAUTIFUL WAY” TO GIVE BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA UNC Wilmington’s Drew Davey and Mariko Polk conduct research designed to protect the state’s coastline and its people.

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 67

2 0 2 1

67

6/18/21 3:56 PM

EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

PROMISING PARTNERSHIPS

RISE29 empowers students, businesses in eastern North Carolina.

Entering its third year, East Carolina University’s student entrepreneurship program, RISE29, is beginning to make noise.

Initially funded by a $1 million grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation, the program is tasked with creating a new generation of entrepreneurial leaders in the university’s 29-county service area. Since its inception, the program has morphed from an innovative idea into a thriving platform that’s assisting businesses across four eastern North Carolina counties.

With more than 200 student participants, 45 clients served and 30,000 hours of field work, the program is doing more than just preparing the state’s next great business leaders — it’s amplifying their voices.

“One of the values I hold close to my heart is serving,” said Emily Cross, a rising senior marketing major who interned in Beaufort County. “I’m from a small town and spent a lot of my younger years volunteering and participat-

68

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 68

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

ing in local events. It felt wonderful working with a small business that strives to give back to the town it calls home.”

As consumers continue to align their support with brands and businesses that reflects their values, RISE29 is doing the same. The program partners students with regional companies that mirror ECU’s principles of service, resiliency and integrity.

That strategy has paid off for both the students and their clients, as RISE29 interns put their ideas into action, revitalizing eastern North Carolina communities.

“I was really able to feel the community that comes along with eastern North Carolina,” said Dana Shefet, a Cary native and member of the ECU Honors College who graduated this spring. “Having the sense that we were uplifting one another and working together as a team to help with a regional need was something that was very valuable to me.”

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:56 PM

Cross and Shefet interned together at The Hackney Distillery in Washington. The pair worked on a market analysis with owner Nick Sanders to figure out the best way to expand the distillery’s footprint.

“Our RISE29 interns were able to tap into university resources and bring a fresh perspective to problems we were facing,” Sanders said. “They helped us get our head around issues that will allow us to grow in the future.

“Small businesses, especially businesses like mine that are in their early phases, can face challenges like employing staff. You must pick and choose what you put resources toward. Having RISE29 interns help with these issues was invaluable because they can tackle problems that you traditionally may not have the means to take on without their support.”

An Edenton native, Cross understands the vital role small businesses play in the region’s prosperity.

“I applied to RISE29 because I’m from a small town,” she said. “I know how important small businesses are to local economies. I was excited to have the opportunity to help a small business create an established presence, which would then feed back into the economic improvement of the town.”

Shefet, who will attend ECU’s Brody School of Medicine this fall, said the program took a chance on her.

“I’m a public health major with no business or entrepreneurial experience,” Shefet said. “I was very fortunate that RISE29 took a chance on me as an intern to expand my horizons into a field I did not have formal training in.”

While learning about the distillery industry was exciting, it didn’t come without its challenges. RISE29 interns often find that what they learn in theory in the classroom is different than what they experience in the field.

“In class, we learn about how to work with clients and organizations, but it’s all hypothetical,” Cross said. “Through this internship, our interaction was real. We had an actual client whose livelihood depends on the success of the business.

“Being a RISE29 intern has certainly prepared me for the future by giving me real-world experience in working with a client and their business, as well as conducting market research for future use.”

Sharon Paynter, assistant vice chancellor for economic and community engagement, said the program has plans to grow beyond the counties in which it currently operates.

Paynter’s office oversees RISE29 and its role in regional transformation in ECU’s service area.

“RISE29 is really the perfect program for ECU and eastern North Carolina,” Paynter said. “It combines our student talent, research expertise and service mission to help our regional economies. We hope to continue to expand RISE29 into additional counties and provide even more support for entrepreneurial growth and innovation in the east.”

Learn more about RISE29 at https://rise29.ecu.edu.

Interested in partnering with ECU and RISE29? Let us know how we can help you.

SHARON PAYNTER

EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

assistant vice chancellor for economic and community engagement paynters@ecu.edu

Division of Research, Economic Development and Engagement 209 East Fifth Street, Greenville, N.C. 27858 252-328-9471 | rede.ecu.edu

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 69

2 0 2 1

69

6/18/21 4:18 PM

FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

THE CAROLINA CYBER NETWORK: A Holistic Cybersecurity Workforce Initiative

by Dr. Mark Sorrells senior vice president for academics Fayetteville Technical Community College

Cybersecurity has been defined as the “forever war”.

Cybersecurity and cyberwarfare represent a dangerous new theater of conflict that is asymmetrical in nature, attacks military and civilian targets, and has very low barriers to entry for both state-based and non-state-based bad actors to exploit.

Cyberspace has invaded all areas of our lives, changing the way we work, live, and play. The recent attacks on Colonial Pipelines, Solar Winds and the agencies whose mission is to protect our national security interests are some examples of the growing threats and challenges we face.

To help the State of North Carolina tackle this growing challenge, Fayetteville Technical Community College (FTCC) and the Carolina Cyber Center of Montreat College, both designated as Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Education by the National Security Agency, are teaming up

70

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 70

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

to initiate the Carolina Cyber Network (CCN). The CCN is a comprehensive workforce development initiative consisting of 2- and 4-year colleges and universities working together to create a coordinated effort to meet the talent needs of North Carolina’s public agencies and private businesses. In addition to FTCC and Montreat College, the network includes Blue Ridge, Catawba Valley, Forsyth Tech, Gaston, Richmond, Stanley, and Wayne Community Colleges along with NCA&T University and Elizabeth City State University.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, cybersecurity employment is expected to increase by 18 percent from 2014 to 2024 and has grown three times the rate of IT jobs nationally. Fort Bragg, the largest military installation in the world by population (located less than 10 miles from FTCC), has a significant cybersecurity operation. Fort Bragg

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:57 PM

is also home to the headquarters of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command. The Army installation supports numerous federal contractors, such as Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, who all contribute to cybersecurity employment locally. North Carolina is also home to the Research Triangle Park, which has companies such as SAS, RedHat, Cisco, IBM, Lenovo and numerous biotech and pharmaceutical companies that played significant roles in creating vaccines to combat the global pandemic. In addition, Charlotte has an incredibly robust cybersecurity workforce in the financial service and utility sectors with Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Duke Energy.

In spite of this growing national and regional demand, cybersecurity talent gaps persist at a level that has elevated national concerns causing the Government Accountability Office to list cybersecurity on its 2017 high-risk list. Labor statistics indicate that more than 200,000 U.S. cybersecurity jobs are currently unfilled. The shortage in NC is estimated to exceed 20,000 unfilled positions. In North Carolina, the talent shortage is particularly critical, as the state is home to more than 11,000 IT and cybersecurity companies (NC Department of Commerce data, 2019). Recent announcements by Google and Apple are expected to further strain the workforce system.

The CCN is focused on targeting critical economic sectors of the state such as biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers, aviation, energy and utility infrastructure, agriculture, education, healthcare, and financial services. There are over 125,000 North Carolina residents that make up North Carolina’s robust and growing IT workforce (EDPNC, https://edpnc.com/industries/information-technology). North Carolina is a top five employer in cyber security, but the demand for workers far exceeds the supply.

The goal of the CCN is to establish a comprehensive workforce development network focused on increasing the number and quality of skilled cybersecurity workers able to fill the regional workforce demand of companies in North Carolina. CCN’s vision is to create a holistic talent pipeline that

incorporates technical, life, and professional skills to provide students with robust hands-on and work-based learning experiences. The program starts with a normative skills, abilities, and knowledge assessment program that is competency-based and aligned with those valued by industry, state, and federal agencies. The CCN is already applying state-of-the-art learning technologies (e.g., realistic cybersecurity “range” gamification for work force development) to enable a higher output of students (i.e., students per teacher ratio). This program also incorporates character development designed to imbue the life skills needed to thrive in a complex world seeking individuals of high moral character to lead our public and private sector companies to more fertile, equitable, diverse, inclusive, and safe outcomes.

A “hub and spoke” model has been employed by Fayetteville Technical Community College and the Carolina Cyber Center to focus investments in a disciplined talent development program scaled through ‘spokes’ to form a cohesive network across the state to efficiently maximize impact. The CCN partnership has already expanded to include two- and fouryear institutions from across the state, as illustrated below:

The business case is clear – with a public/private partnership leveraging existing cybersecurity centers of excellence and the state’s leadership in workforce development, this program represents a powerful, scalable, and efficient solution to the state’s critical cybersecurity talent shortfall.

Interested in learning more about FTCC and the Carolina Cyber Network? Visit faytechcc.edu

FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE 2201 Hull Road, Fayetteville, NC 28303 910-678-8400 | faytechcc.edu

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 71

2 0 2 1

71

6/18/21 3:57 PM

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RTI INTERNATIONAL

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

Founded in 1958, RTI International (RTI) was the first organization to call Research Triangle Park home. In its early years, RTI’s business focused on areas of importance to North Carolina, including applied statistics and environmental research. Today, RTI’s domestic work spans the United States, informing policy to improve all aspects of human health, addressing education and workforce development gaps, and employing multimethod approaches for criminal justice reform, to name a few of the institute’s wide-ranging disciplines.

In addition to RTI’s research strengths, we have also sought to improve the human condition through commercial endeavors and innovation, leveraging business-, government-, and academic-sector partnerships to advance new products to the marketplace. We have developed a strong track record

72

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 72

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

for industry partnering by investing in technology development, negotiating licensing deals, forming new research and development collaborations, and launching startup companies out of RTI. For example, RTI’s commercialization unit turned forward-looking infrared camera research conducted for the Department of Defense into a spinout for the online inspection market.

Over more than six decades, no problem has proven too big for RTI’s innovative spirit, with discoveries such as Taxol®, a highly effective anti-cancer drug, and the development of cochlear implants to treat those who are deaf or suffering from profound hearing loss. Most recently, pretomanid, the groundbreaking drug developed through a public-private partnership managed by RTI scientists and its partners, is treating extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis and will save

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 3:59 PM

millions of lives. Working with technology partners, our researchers are now exploring the potential for wearable devices to detect infectious diseases. At RTI, innovation does not depend on eureka moments. We follow deliberate paths to innovation that require commitment to strategy, perseverance, and collaboration.

Because of RTI’s long history of success, we have adapted and applied our science in new and exciting ways to confront COVID-19. We responded to the pandemic, meeting the moment with evidence-based science and multidisciplinary solutions. RTI experts leaned into their strengths as problem solvers, thought leaders, and collaborative partners to find solutions on local, state, national, and global levels, marshaling resources to respond to the fast-moving research needs and opportunities resulting from COVID-19.

Our researchers also used their expertise to inform public perception of COVID-19 through research areas including misinformation, racial disparities, economic recovery, wearable technology, and more.

After confronting the challenges of the past year, RTI is ready to take on the challenges of the future. The institute recently launched Forethought, a $5+ million research collaboration challenge. This challenge builds on a foundation of recent RTI investments in successful university collaborations and utilizes the brain power of North Carolina’s universities, just as the founders of RTI and Research Triangle Park did more than 60 years ago, to find innovative solutions to the most pressing problems of today and tomorrow. RTI leadership, including our University Research Collaboration Committee, Board of Governors, and senior leaders, sought bold, visionary project proposals that address critical societal challenges and will help stimulate transformational change for the next 60 years.

Forethought was open to nonstudent researchers affiliated with the following Triangle-area institutions: RTI

International, Duke University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These universities include RTI’s founding and current university partners, bridging past to present. Submissions came in large numbers—136 to be exact—and covered a variety of critical issues, including health equity, artificial intelligence and modeling, drug discovery, early childhood development, educational equity, water and air quality, commercial health, renewable energy, and environmental justice. Stay tuned for when the Forethought winner is announced this Fall.

A key differentiator that sets North Carolina apart from other states has long been its commitment to higher education—a commitment that has turned our state into an engine of innovation that improves lives within our borders and beyond. RTI was borne of this commitment, founded by Triangle-area universities and government and business leaders. We understand that collaborating with area universities will continue to be instrumental in the success of Research Triangle Park and North Carolina. True to our roots, through this future-focused competition, we expect the Forethought challenge to harness and eventually contribute to the distinctive intellectual and institutional resources and culture of the Triangle region.

RTI International is an independent nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition.

RTI INTERNATIONAL 3040 East Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 919-541-6000 | rti.org

RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute. RTI and the RTI logo are U.S. registered trademarks of Research Triangle Institute.

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 73

2 0 2 1

73

6/18/21 4:11 PM

SMALL BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CENTER

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

SBTDC’s Tech Team: Bryan Dennstedt, Nicole Schwerbrock, John Ujvari, Rachel Burton, Chris Veal, Mike Carnes

TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION Demystifying the Divide Between Academia and Small Business In 2013, Dr. Jian Liu founded Glycan Therapeutics, a spin-out from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, to commercialize his academic research on using glycans to create a synthetic form of heparin.

Heparin is anticoagulant drug that helps to decrease the clotting ability of blood and prevent harmful clots from forming in blood vessels. It is the most widely used blood thinner in the world and is prescribed to more than 10 million people in the United States each year.

It is an animal-sourced product that is naturally derived from pig intestines. However, heparin is primarily imported from China and the supply chain is not always secure. Additionally, there were major recalls in 2008 after a contaminated batch of heparin resulted in the death of nearly 80 people. Dr. Liu believes that a synthetic form of heparin is a safer, more

74

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 74

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

reliable option for patients that depend on daily use.

Shortly after founding the company, Dr. Liu reached out to the Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC) to get assistance with market and competitor analysis. The SBTDC’s Tech Team enrolled Glycan Therapeutics in their annual Summer Internship Program, where intern Jennifer Volkert assisted with market analysis, product analysis, and identification of potential competitors.

“Based on the information provided, we were able to obtain a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant that helped us to further advance the synthetic heparin technology,” said Dr. Liu. Glycan Therapeutics has since received two Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants from the National Institute of Health that total nearly $1 million.

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 4:00 PM

“The SBTDC is very useful, especially in the early stage,” said Dr. Liu. “Nicole [Schwerbrock, Director of the SBTDC’s Technology Development and Commercialization Program] and I talk a lot about how to choose the right people to help us advance the business side of the company. The science and technology are important, but we also need the business expertise to know how to convert it into a business idea with a viable business plan. The SBTDC helps us overcome those complexities.”

Founded in 1984, the North Carolina SBTDC was the first Small Business Development Center in the nation to be officially recognized as providing specialized technology commercialization services. The SBTDC is a business and technology extension program of the UNC System, administered by North Carolina State University and operated in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The SBTDC’s business counselors assist small and mid-sized businesses throughout North Carolina from 16 campusbased offices across the state.

The SBTDC’s Technology Development and Commercialization Program’s primary goals are providing counseling services to clients with technology-based businesses throughout North Carolina and engaging with UNC System campuses to bring promising technologies to market.

The SBTDC’s technology commercialization clients typically

“The science and technology are important, but we also need the business experts to know how to convert it into a business idea with a viable business plan. The SBTDC helps us overcome those complexities.”

Dr. Jian Liu

have the following characteristics: (1) an innovative technologybased concept, product, service, or process; (2) intellectual property that serves as a foundation for a competitive advantage; (3) high potential for growth; (4) a high level of uncertainty/risk; and (5) don’t qualify for traditional financing.

Many of these clients benefit from the Tech Team’s expert counsel on the national SBIR/STTR Program, a nondilutive federal funding mechanism to help small businesses develop and commercialize innovative solutions to existing problems that the federal government is interested in and have significant market potential.

North Carolina’s university spinouts are increasingly taking advantage of the STTR program, as total STTR funding has increased from $6.2 million in 2010 to $14.3 million in 2020, a 130% increase.

The SBTDC’s technology counselors help eligible clients with incorporating STTR into their funding strategies, identifying appropriate agencies and topics, and providing comprehensive proposal reviews. The SBTDC also offers periodic SBIR/STTR workshops across the state and online.

In 2020, over 600 individuals from universities and small R&D businesses across the state attended these workshops, many of which proceeded to apply for funding. In fact, 84% of recent SBIR and STTR award recipients in North Carolina worked with the SBTDC in some capacity.

The SBTDC continues to assist Glycan Therapeutics with its ongoing technology commercialization efforts, including making new connections and helping to identify potential equity investors.

In 2020, the Tech Team worked with over 400 clients and helped them obtain $41.8 million in funding, including SBIR/STTR funding, angel investment, and venture capital.

Given these results, the SBTDC’s Technology Commercialization Team continues to be recognized as an important part of North Carolina’s innovation ecosystem for technology companies.

Whatever your business destination, we can help you find your way. Visit sbtdc.org.

Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn & Flickr

SMALL BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CENTER 5 West Hargett Street, Suite 600, Raleigh, North Carolina 27601 919-715-7272 | sbtdc.org

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 75

2 0 2 1

75

6/18/21 4:00 PM

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers are doing their part in the fight against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

PARTNERSHIPS FOR A HEALTHY NORTH CAROLINA AND HEALTHY WORLD Over the past year and half, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has played a leading role combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. Ranked as a top U.S. university in the world for coronavirus research, Carolina has helped unlock the secrets of the COVID-19 virus and usher in new therapeutics to treat the disease. Now, as the pandemic begins to recede, UNC-Chapel Hill is ensuring tools are in place to prevent the next pandemic and to drive North Carolina’s economic recovery.

THE SEARCH FOR COVID VARIANTS Established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2016 and based at UNC-Chapel Hill, the NC Policy

76

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 76

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

Collaboratory has deployed $29 million in CARES Act funding to support research on treatment, community testing and prevention of COVID-19 at 14 UNC System universities.

In March 2021, the Collaboratory received an additional $15 million for CORVASEQ, a partnership with NC DHHS to expand and conduct statewide genomic sequencing of COVID-19 samples. Led by Drs. Dirk Dittmer and Amir Barzin of the UNC School of Medicine and Dr. Audrey Pettifor of the Gillings School of Global Public Health, CORVASEQ will partner with the state’s four major medical schools and their associated health care networks to identify and track variant strains of the COVID-19 coronavirus and help scientists and doctors respond to future outbreaks.

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 4:00 PM

READDI FOR THE NEXT PANDEMIC As scientists are moving quickly to identify and study variants of the COVID-19 coronavirus, UNC’s Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Discovery Initiative (READDI) is linking global researchers and industry to develop broad spectrum antiviral therapies that disrupt the host cell processes in the human body essential to virus reproduction.

Rather than developing drugs that target a single virus such as COVID-19, READDI seeks therapies that will act against entire virus families, such as coronaviruses in general.

CATALYZING ECONOMIC GROWTH IN A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD As the tide of the pandemic begins to turn, UNC is deploying its expertise across the state in initiatives that will boost the recovering economy.

In August 2020, UNC formed a research partnership with BASF, a global chemical company with major bioscience and agricultural biotech operations in North Carolina. BASF will tap the University’s expertise in biomedical, health and pharma applications to discover new innovations for customers in agriculture, health and personal care.

In March, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz launched two bold economic development strategies – one to bring new vibrancy to Chapel Hill and the Triangle and another to support communities in all 100 counties of the state.

Working closely with the Town of Chapel Hill, UNC will establish an Innovation District in the heart of downtown, anchored by a UNC-led Innovation Hub. The hub will serve as a dynamic commercial space for entrepreneurs, start-up companies and existing industries seeking proximity to students, faculty researchers and campus. Both the district and the new hub will create more opportunities for innovative startups and growth-oriented companies to find a home in Chapel Hill.

UNC’s mission of service has always extended far beyond the stone walls of the campus and, with the new Carolina Across 100 initiative, Chancellor Guskiewicz is extending university know-how to each one of the 100 NC counties. Led

by School of Government faculty member and ncIMPACT Initiative Director Anita Brown-Graham, the five-year project will bring together towns and cities in cohorts to tackle common challenges they face post-COVID-19. Communities will identify their most pressing problems and develop plans to address them, and Carolina will support them with dedicated teams of experts. Among the post-pandemic challenges expected to be addressed: small business closures, job losses, learning losses in students, and community mental health and well-being.

For more information, visit research.unc.edu.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research CB 4000, 312 South Building, Chapel Hill, N.C. 919-962-1319 | research.unc.edu

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 77

2 0 2 1

77

6/18/21 4:00 PM

UNC NUTRITION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

ADVANCEMENTS IN NUTRITION Scientific discoveries to improve health through individualized nutrition.

The UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) is an internationally recognized center conducting innovative basic and translational science to establish how individual differences in nutrient requirements and responses to diet affect our nutritional needs. NRI research contributes to the prevention and mitigation of chronic disease across the lifespan from periconception through aging.

The NRI’s mission is to lead precision nutrition research by understanding how genetics, microbiome, and environment create differences in our metabolism that affect our individual requirements for and responses to nutrients.

The vision is to use scientific discovery to ensure optimal health through individualized nutrition.

The NRI is a unit of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is located on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, NC. NRI principal investigators hold faculty appointments in the departments of Nutrition and Psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Their research interrogates

78

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 78

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

nutrient roles in disease prevention, disease risk factors, and the impact of gene-environment and gene-nutrient interactions.

This research employs the following advanced approaches to nutrition science: Nutrigenetics. Identifying the genetic blueprint that makes

each of us respond uniquely to nutrition and what it means for our personal health

Epigenetics. Studying chemical marks on genes that turn

them on or off and are often affected by nutrition early and for the rest of life

Nutrigenomics. Using molecular tools to understand how nutrients may affect the expression of genes Metabolomics. Measuring thousands of small molecules

(metabolites) to better understand how nutrition affects our metabolism, performance, and health

Microbiomics. Studying how each of the many microbe species in our gut affects our nutritional health in different ways and makes us respond uniquely to nutrition

Through their research, the institute’s award-winning

SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 4:01 PM

principal investigators have demonstrated—in specific populations—the need for certain essential nutrients, the highrisk nature of some diets, the link between obesity and cancer, and the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Their work continues to explore for further elucidation of findings.

A significant area of focus at the NRI is research into the effects of nutrients, environment, and genes on brain development and on memory and attention abilities with findings that are informing the nutrition of people at all stages of life.

The NRI houses research cores that offer a wide range of services to researchers. Cores offer shared resources, including cutting-edge technologies, high-end instrumentation, technical support, and education. NRI cores enhance and expand the collaborative capabilities of research at the institute, at the North Carolina Research Campus, across the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, and throughout the worldwide research community.

Research is supported through these cores: Animal Metabolism Phenotyping Human Research Metabolism and Metabolomics Precision Nutrition

The Human Research Core features one of the few wholeroom human calorimeters in the United States. This advanced research suite uses indirect calorimetry to evaluate a research participant’s 24-hour energy intake and expenditure. The suite is equipped with a bed, treadmill, bathroom, airlock chamber for food delivery, ports for blood draws, and entertainment options. Data can be collected without interruption during meals, sleep, and light activity. Included in the NRI’s services are monitoring, consenting, scrubs, supplies, technicians, and analysis upon completion. The whole-room calorimeter is essential for studies on energy balance and fuel use.

Located in the greater Charlotte region, Kannapolis is a blossoming community, steeped in history, full of charm, and

currently experiencing a remarkable renaissance in its downtown. The people who make up the NRI have wide-ranging expertise and skills—professors of nutrition and psychology, postdocs, laboratory technicians, doctoral students, interns, administrators, and administrative support staff—and have come to Kannapolis from all parts of the world. As diverse as this community is, they have agreed on a set of Values to which they commit themselves while conducting their work in service of the NRI mission and vision: Integrity; Innovation; Collaboration; Dedication; Research Excellence; and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the NRI was launched in 2008 as a primary partner of the North Carolina Research Campus. The institute is housed in a 125,000-square-foot building featuring state-of-the-art laboratory and research spaces, clinical facilities, and offices and meeting areas.

With this advanced facility and technology, NRI research scientists are making important discoveries for worldwide health. In turn, this intellectual capital is fueling an economic engine to attract business opportunities and create new jobs for North Carolinians. The NRI is training a skilled biotechnology workforce that serves life sciences and nutrition companies located in the Piedmont.

As a nonprofit research center at UNC-Chapel Hill, part of the state university system, the NRI receives an annual state appropriation, and is additionally funded by federal and other research grants, and private donor gifts to explore new scientific ideas, recruit the world’s best scientists, and provide hands-on education and mentoring of students. The NRI embraces the University’s mission, which includes public service, by producing annual training workshops, symposia, and seminars for scientific researchers, and a full slate of free programming to translate the good works of the NRI for the public.

The NRI welcomes inquiries for collaborative opportunities and its service cores, and encourages everyone to learn about precision nutrition in order to Eat Uniquely.

For more information contact: Suzanne Dane | 704.250.5008 | suzanne_dane@unc.edu

UNC NUTRITION RESEARCH INSTITUTE Suzanne Dane, director of development Nutrition Research Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 500 Laureate Way, Kannapolis, NC 28081 704-250-5008 | www.uncnri.org

J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 79

2 0 2 1

79

6/18/21 4:01 PM

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON

RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

RESEARCH

NORTH CAROLINA

A “BEAUTIFUL WAY” TO GIVE BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA UNCW’s Drew Davey and Mariko Polk conduct research designed to protect the state’s coastline and its people

by Kristin Hanson

Water has long loomed large in Drew Davey’s life. He grew up along North Carolina’s Outer and Inner Banks. In high school he restored a sailboat, then started living on it.

“I got an up-close look at coastal morphology [how the beach changes over time] and the consequences hurricanes are having on our coast,” Davey says. “That’s what got me interested in coastal engineering.”

That interest led him – like many others – to UNC Wilmington, where a unique blend of expertise, infrastructure and location provide a perfect launch pad for research and careers in marine science. For Mariko Polk ’15M, the potential to make discoveries that can help protect and preserve our coastal resources brought her to UNCW not once, but twice.

She received her M.S. in environmental studies in 2015 and

80

B U S I N E S S

Research_NC_July2021.indd 80

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

returned in 2018 to study coastal ecology with Professor Martin Posey and Assistant Professor Devon Eulie.

If a passion for the sea is a common thread that brought Davey and Polk to UNCW, so too is a resource that has helped keep them here: scholarship support. Davey received the LS3P Scholarship in Coastal Engineering, and Polk received the Francis Peter Fensel Sr. Memorial Scholarship. Increasing scholarships and other student support resources is a top priority of Like No Other: The Campaign for UNCW. Scholarships provide both undergraduate and graduate students financial relief that allows them to focus on big-picture questions they want to answer through experiences and research.

“I can say from my own experience and other students SPONSORED SECTION

6/18/21 4:01 PM

I’ve talked to in my field, we’re asking these questions because we’re passionate about marine science,” Polk says. “We’re going to make a difference with the research we’re doing.” Polk’s dissertation centers on how shoreline management strategies protect coastal communities and how they affect the delicate ecosystems where the water meets the land.

The capabilities of living shorelines – which can involve native vegetation and, sometimes, a variety of sustainable materials constructed by humans but do less damage to the intertidal habitat – are fairly unexplored, and that’s where Polk hopes to provide a contribution.

“We recently discovered that living shorelines have less lateral erosion, or even experience growth, during storm events” when compared with natural, unaltered shorelines, she says. “We’re exploring how living shorelines affect the ecosystem services salt marshes provide, and we are exploring how past coastal management decisions affected the level of damage caused by Hurricane Florence.”

Mariko Polk

Once her dissertation is complete, Polk hopes the research can help empower coastal managers, marine contractors and homeowners in shoreline management decision-making that benefits both coastal communities and ecosystems.

Davey has similar aims for the research he’s been conducting with Ryan Mieras, an assistant professor and the first full-time, tenure-track faculty member hired for UNCW’s new B.S. in coastal engineering program. Last year, Davey joined Mieras’ team in work supported by a Summer Undergraduate Research and Creativity Awards grant to test a new tool, CCP+, that can help observe and quantify geomorphic changes in coastal environments.

“We don’t have a good understanding of sediment transport in the swash zone (the sand moving in between each wave).

The CCP+ allows us to study that,” Davey says. He’s also helping Mieras test a low-cost Light Imaging Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) device that can be deployed during storms to quantify the rapid changes that happen on the beach during those events.

“After Florence and many other recent hurricanes, we’re in desperate need of more accurate predictions of geomorphic change so we can improve response and recovery to storms on our barrier islands,” he says. “Devices like the CCP+ and LIDAR can provide data to guide policy advice about coastal construction and protection measures.”

Davey plans to continue research on the project during a summer internship with the Naval Research Laboratory, an opportunity he wouldn’t be able to take advantage of without the support of his scholarship. Down the road, he looks forward to paying back that support by establishing a career in service to the place he grew up.

“I live in Edenton on the Albemarle Sound, and it’s a relatively poor area,” he says. “I thought this would be a beautiful way to give back to North Carolina, by getting into coastal engineering, and helping protect them from the impacts of hurricanes.”

For more details, visit uncw.edu/research.

601 S. College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403 910-962-7430 | uncw.edu/research Drew Davey J U L Y

Research_NC_July2021.indd 81

2 0 2 1

81

6/18/21 4:01 PM

TOWNSQUARE

Summerfield

SUMMER BREEZE

+ TALKING POINTS

A picturesque rural suburb, Summerfield eyes development to attract newcomers while maintaining its wide-open spaces.

S UMME R FI E LD

12,000 POPULATION

68%

POPULATION GROWTH SINCE 2000

94%

POPULATION THAT IS WHITE

12

▲Summerfield retains pastures that face development pressure.

MILES NORTHEAST OF GREENSBORO

BY BRYAN MIMS

Third

Harold Martin HOMETOWN OF N.C. A&T STATE UNIVERSITY’S CHANCELLOR

$1.6 billion ASSESSED PROPERTY VALUE IN 2020

source: Town of Summerfield

82

B U S I N E S S

odging picnic tables and Adirondack chairs, Nathan Daly kicks a soccer ball with his young sons – Nate, Knox and Bear — who run across the grassy expanse at Summerfield Farms, resting at an umbrella-shaded picnic table for swigs of grape soda.

“Mom’s at home with the twins, so I figured I’d get out of work early and come over here and hang out,” says Daly, 35, the father of five children. Five years ago, he moved from southern Virginia to Summerfield, just northwest of Greensboro. “It’s just a great place to raise a family. Sports for the kids, a good little hometown feel.”

The late afternoon is warm but the atmosphere is chill as country music pipes across the field. A beverage stand called The Well Truck flows with beer, cider and wine. It is a big draw at Summerfield Farms, a working farm and events venue owned by High Point real estate developer David Couch, CEO of Blue Ridge Cos. Couch, 59, began buying land around here in 1998 and has amassed more than 1,000 acres divided into six tracts stretching from Summerfield Road to Interstate 73. Roughly 680 acres makes up Summerfield Farms, where he raises cattle and grows organic produce for sale at The Market, a refurbished tractor shed. A white, gussied-up barn hosts weddings, conferences and other social occasions. Stylish cottages and cabins provide lodging. “I never intended to develop it,” he says of the rolling pastures and stands of trees. “But I began to listen to the land and kind of envisioned what it would look like to provide some housing options.”

He envisions affordable homes for both downsizing retirees and upstart millennials, retail, restaurants, a health care center, and hiking trails that connect with the area’s greenways — in essence, a town within a town called Summerfield Farms Village. “We’re planning a world-class, master-planned community,” he says. “We need flexibility in housing, and it’s time for Summerfield to address that.”

N O R T H

Townsquare_Summerfield_July 2021-new.indd 82

PHOTO BY MARK WAGONER

D

LARGEST GUILFORD COUNTY MUNICIPALITY POPULATION-WISE

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 4:22 PM

▲ Summerfield Farms is a popular gathering place, retail center and event venue.

LONG ON HISTORY, BIG ON CHARM

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUMMERFIELD FARMS, KEVIN MURRAY. PHOTOS BY MARK WAGONER

Summerfield is a town of big homes, big lots and big price tags.

Its residential architecture runs the spectrum, with luxury estates, ranch-style houses and bungalows. The median price of homes sold in April and May exceeded $500,000, according to Realtor.com.

“We’ve got fourth-generation millennials that were born and raised in Summerfield,” Couch says. “This particular generation is priced out of the town where they were raised.”

▲ The town council has agreed to replace its existing city offices with a new building expected to cost more than $3.5 million.

It’s not just the younger folks: It’s the baby boomers trying to scale down. “If you think about what young families and the millennials are looking for, and you compare it to what the aging adult community is looking for, it’s all smaller,” Couch says. “Right now, your option is to move out of Summerfield.”

Eager as Couch is to see smaller, lower-priced housing choices, the town is known for its distaste of high-density development.

People like their yards spacious. Summerfield doesn’t have its own water and sewer services, relying instead on private or communal wells and septic tanks.

The town has a fire department but no police force; the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office provides law-enforcement protection.

Summerfield Mayor BJ Barnes served as the county sheriff for 24 years. While the Summerfield community has roots reaching back

to the 1700s, it wasn’t incorporated as a town until 1996.

The village started out as Bruce’s Crossroads, named for landowner Charles Bruce. The town seal includes a sketch of a bugle boy. During the Revolution, the bugler for American Gen. Harry Lee was killed in a skirmish and is buried in Bruce’s Cemetery, right across from Summerfield Elementary School. When a preacher named John Summerfield led a revival, locals took a liking to him and named their community in his honor.

Given all that history, the official town is only 25 years old. “I really like that we’re a young town trying to find its way, dealing with growth issues and our identity,” says Scott Whitaker, the town manager for nine years.

Summerfield has the multilane U.S. 220 as its commercial core, which includes a Food Lion, pharmacies and a handful of restaurants. But it lacks a true downtown.

“We’re largely a residential community with a higher per capita income but very limited services,” Whitaker says. The per capita income in Summerfield was $50,319 in 2019 compared to the statewide average of $32,021.

The traditional center of town, at the intersection of N.C. 150 and Old Summerfield Road, is mostly free of commercial enterprise. Summerfield Town Hall, with its quaint, oval sign overhanging the sidewalk, occupies a handsome brick building dating back to 1872. But last November, the city council approved the construction of a $3.5 million town hall at a nearby location.

Summerfield’s corporate limits encompass nearly 27 square miles. Cruising through town, the scenery is accented with barns,

▲ Kevin Murray owns The Jumping Bean coffee kiosk on U.S. 220.

J U L Y

Townsquare_Summerfield_July 2021-new.indd 83

2 0 2 1

83

6/18/21 4:22 PM

TOWNSQUARE

Summerfield

hay bales and split-rail fences. Goats and horses graze in pastures within sight of cul-de-sacs. “We’re still rural,” Barnes says. “We have a lot of rural land out here within the town limits, and people like that.” Now in his second year as mayor, his objective is to preserve that aesthetic. “I would like for us to keep our rural charm as much as we can, but I’d also like to see some measured growth.”

A DEVELOPER’S VISION

PRIDE IN PARKS

Parks and trails are a point of pride in Summerfield. Summerfield Athletic Park opened in 2010, featuring a multipurpose field and three baseball fields hosting an array of tournaments.

Summerfield Community Park boasts a paved exercise trail weaving through the deep woods and a gorgeous fishing lake, butterfly garden, wildflower field and amphitheater. Ask Whitaker, the town manager, what he loves about Summerfield, and he’ll tell you he’s “really partial to our efforts related to parks and recreation amenities.”

An example is the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, which is under development through Summerfield, roughly following the route of the abandoned Atlantic and Yadkin Railroad. The existing A&Y Greenway meanders from downtown Greensboro north toward

84

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

Townsquare_Summerfield_July 2021-new.indd 84

▲ Summerfield takes great pride in its community park and athletic complex.

Summerfield. This trail would link with the proposed Piedmont Greenway, designed to run from Greensboro to Winston-Salem.

Protecting the scenery and room-to-roam feel of Summerfield is the primary goal of the town’s development ordinance. It has been in the works for years, with town council approval expected this summer. Its main objectives are to lessen street congestion, provide fire protection, prevent overcrowding and “avoid undue concentration of population.” Couch says his community would help the town achieve its development aims. “Towns don’t stay static,” he says. “They either grow or they die. People want us to grow in a smart manner.”

Back at Summerfield Farms, dozens of teachers from Summerfield Charter Academy chatter, quenching their thirst with offerings from The Well Truck. They had come for an end-ofthe-school-year retreat inside the main barn, and now they’re toasting the start of summer. Beneath a large tree, a young couple with a baby sit on a blanket.

The “green acres” of Summerfield are what teacher Sara Pescuma finds so appealing. The mother of a 10-year-old girl, she wanted to build her own house, and she says Summerfield had plenty of elbow room. She was also drawn to the high-performing schools in the area, some of the best in Guilford County. “It’s growing, though it’s not in the middle of Greensboro,” she says.

“But it’s still close enough to go whenever you want. People are really friendly, and that’s what keeps me here.”

The afternoon is warm, the music is wafting and the drinks are flowing. Things are laid back and wide open. Summerfield hopes to keep it that way. ■

PHOTOS BY MARK WAGONER

Measured growth is what Couch hopes to deliver. But to make his master-planned community a reality, he needs a water and sewer system.

His plan is to bring together Summerfield, Greensboro and Guilford County in a partnership to create a special tax district covering his project. Greensboro would extend water and sewer lines to Summerfield, and residents of the district would pay double the rates of those charged in the city. The higher rates and tax revenue would be collected by Guilford County to pay Greensboro for the infrastructure. As for how many homes he plans to build, Couch says, “The market will determine that.

We don’t have a density yet.”

Couch has not submitted a formal proposal to the town, but Barnes sees benefits in a special tax district. “Summerfield gets water and sewer and doesn’t have to pay for it,” he says. Nobody outside the district would be forced to tap into the water system. Providing reliable water sources for fire protection is a long-standing issue in North Carolina’s rural communities. Four years ago, the towns of Summerfield, Oak Ridge and Stokesdale considered a combined water system, but the high cost and other concerns dried up that idea.

Summerfield has historically resisted a water system for fear it would attract denser developments. Still, the state legislature in 2019 allocated $1.1 million for each of the three towns to develop water infrastructure. Town leaders are looking to use that money to build 35,000-gallon tanks as a source of water to fight fires.

Couch faces opposition from some residents who fear his plans would overload the roads and threaten the area’s rural atmosphere. But he says he’s relying on “world-class planners” who can skillfully develop the land to protect open space and enhance rural vistas. “You can create useful open space, not just the backs of lots and wetlands and briar patches that people really can’t access and enjoy.”

Bryan Mims is a writer and reporter at WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

C A R O L I N A

6/18/21 4:23 PM

Back_Covers_3-4_July 2021.indd 1

6/18/21 12:59 PM

Back_Covers_3-4_July 2021.indd 2

6/18/21 12:59 PM